


Everyone Needs a Place

by PixChuu22



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blow Jobs, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Major Character Injury, Masturbation, Past Rape/Non-con, Permanent Injury, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prostitution, Sherlock Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:33:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixChuu22/pseuds/PixChuu22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes walks back into Dr. John Watson's life two years after his 'death' wearing a tuxedo and a smile and missing half of his left hand. As always, John is drawn back into Sherlock's orbit and finds himself trying to heal someone with physical, emotional, and psychological scars... often to the detriment of himself.</p><p>This is a very dark fic. It literally hurts to write it. Approach with caution. If you can think of any other tags I need to have on it, don't hesitate to let me know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Refused to Be Still When He Halted // 3rd November 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hamstermoon gifted me with cover art for this fic. You can enjoy it here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2226687
> 
> Currently being translated into Russian (ру́сский язы́к): http://ficbook.net/readfic/2335331

[ ](http://i.imgur.com/qXrSWdb.jpg)

Click for full size

_"I looked at all the trees and didn’t know what to do._

_A box made out of leaves.  
What else was in the woods? A heart, closing. Nevertheless._

_Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.  
I kept my mind on the moon. Cold moon, long nights moon. _

_From the landscape: a sense of scale.  
From the dead: a sense of scale. _

_I turned my back on the story. A sense of superiority.  
Everything casts a shadow._

_Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything."_

\- Richard Siken, "Details of the Woods" from War of the Foxes 

When Sherlock Holmes appeared in The Landmark Hotel's restaurant, dressed like a waiter and speaking in a ridiculous French accent, Dr. John Watson's first reaction was shock. It was not an unusual reaction for him to have to Sherlock's sudden appearance, considering that two years before he had watched the dark-haired detective fall to his death from the rooftop of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Two years before, John had felt for a pulse and found none, had watched Sherlock flopping bonelessly as he was loaded onto a stretcher, had attended the funeral and fought the tears that wanted to fall. Sherlock Holmes was definitely dead, and yet he stood in front of John with a smirk on his face, blathering about tuxedos. 

John's second reaction, once the shock had thoroughly washed through him in shuddering waves, was blinding fury. John had never appreciated feeling lied to or taken advantage of, and he liked it even less when it came from someone for whom he cared deeply. 

It had always been hard for John to define his feelings for Sherlock; he was definitely closer to Sherlock than anyone else on the planet and there was a good amount of attraction on John's side of the equation. Who could blame him, though? Sherlock had the sort of angular, unusual-yet-attractive face that would have looked normal on the cover of a fashion magazine, he kept his hair just slightly longer than average which allowed the dark curls to become unruly, and his body was fit, trim, and graceful in its movements. While Sherlock had the sort of personality that most people would find off-putting, John had always found himself enjoying Sherlock's acerbic wit and thought Sherlock's unintended rudeness was oddly charming. So, as difficult as it was for John to categorize his feelings for Sherlock, 'someone for whom he cared deeply' definitely applied. 

That was precisely why John reacted so strongly to Sherlock's betrayal, especially ince the other man made a joke when it became obvious that John was tipping over into anger at the return of his former best friend. 

John lunged forward to wrap his hands around Sherlock's throat before he'd made the conscious decision to do so and Sherlock's hands came up to fend off the attack. That was when John got another shock, one that knocked the anger out of him completely: Sherlock was missing his pinky and ring finger on his left hand. In fact, a good portion of the left side of that hand was gone. 

John jerked his hands back, stunned. "Jesus," he whispered, leaning back onto his knees where they were straddled around Sherlock's thighs. "Your hand." 

"Yes," Sherlock said, rubbing at his throat while several of the other patrons in the restaurant grabbed John and dragged him off of Sherlock. "That is something I thought you might mention." 

But they couldn't say anything more at that moment, because the maître d' was rushing towards them, propelled on a wave of whispers from the other diners in the restaurant. Within moments, John and Sherlock were being escorted from the restaurant while Mary Morstan, the woman John had been dating for six months and the one he'd intended to propose to at The Landmark Hotel's restaurant that night, trailed after them with a bemused expression. 

The double doors to the Landmark Hotel closed behind them, leaving them standing in silence on the pavement outside. There was a pause as they all began putting their jackets back on; the November evening air had a bite to it. 

"I suppose we should relocate so that we might continue our discussion," Sherlock said, shrugging into his Belstaff coat. John's jaw tightened at the sight, finding the move so familiar and so unbelievably painful to watch; he had never again expected to see Sherlock sliding his arms into the Belstaff and giving the collar a little tug to settle it just-so. He had thought of it many times, especially when he turned his own collar up against chilly winter breezes in the years after Sherlock's supposed death, and each time he'd thought of it, a little stab of sorrow had gone through John. Seeing it again on a man who was obviously not dead didn't diminish the familiar sorrow, but it did tinge it with anger. 

"Um..." Mary glanced between the two men, obviously unsure of her role in their dynamic. "There's a little place up the block that's open late. The food is awful, but it will be warmer in there than it is out here." Mary, dressed in a revealing evening dress with a faux fur coat thrown over it, gave a little shiver to underscore her words. 

"Right," John said, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets more to keep them off Sherlock's throat than to keep them warm. "Let's go, then." 

Once they had seated themselves in the cafe, Sherlock steepled his hands together in front of his chest and opened his mouth with an expression John was familiar with: his 'I'm going to explain something terribly complicated so try to keep up' expression. 

"Stop," John said, his voice tight. "Whatever you're going to say, just stop. The only thing I want to know right now is what happened to your hand? The last time I saw you, your hand was fine. You were _dead_ , by all indications, but your hand was fine. What happened between then and now?" 

Sherlock's hands had drifted down to the tabletop as John spoke. Sherlock glanced down at his mangled hand and John followed his gaze. Where once there had been fingers and the upper portion of Sherlock's palm, there was now only a ragged and twisting scar. The wound had not been made by a surgeon's scalpel; it would have been more precise. This wound looked as if someone had _torn_ his fingers away, and John felt his throat tightening as he imagined how painful the experience had to have been. 

Sherlock slid his left hand off of the table and tucked it into his lap within the folds of his Belstaff where neither John nor Mary could go on staring at it. He lowered his head slightly, eyes flicking up to lock onto John's face. "I have spent the last two years traveling the globe, dismantling the extensive network of spies, assassins, and political figures who owed allegiance to Moriarty. I had completed the last part of my mission when I was captured in Serbia and held for two months. They tortured me for information that I could not give them. They beat me, cut me, brutalized me, and violated me." 

John grimaced, leaning back in his chair to put a little distance between himself and Sherlock's words. While there were many meanings to 'violate,' he knew precisely which meaning Sherlock intended in his usage. 

"I believe they used hedge shears on my hand, though, if you're looking for specifics," Sherlock said, his tone light and conversational. 

"Don't do that," John said. His head was down, his eyes shut as if he could shut out Sherlock's words. He was gripping the edges of the Formica tabletop, his fingers going white with the force of his grip. "Don't try to act like it isn't a big deal and it doesn't affect you." 

"I wasn't -" 

"You _were_ ," John insisted, cutting Sherlock off mid-word. He lifted his head just enough to see Sherlock when he rolled his eyes up, unable to face the other man directly after listening to the inventory of the wrongs performed against him since John had last seen him. "You may not feel things like the rest of us, but I know you feel physical pain, so _don't_ act as if torture didn't affect you." 

"John," Mary said, and there was a faint warning in her tone as if she were trying to remind John not to browbeat the other man, and John took a breath as he glanced over at his girlfriend, his chest tight. 

When he felt like he could manage to speak to Sherlock without letting his anger leak into his voice, he turned away from Mary and locked his eyes back on the other man. "So, how did you get away? How did you escape?" 

"I didn't escape. Mycroft had been keeping tabs on me while I was crisscrossing the globe and he came to get me out because -" 

" _Mycroft_ knew?" John asked, disbelief coloring the words. 

"Oh, he would have needed a confidant," Mary pointed out, and when John turned his outraged expression to her, added, "Sorry." 

"But he was the only one? The only one who knew?" John asked, hoping that Mycroft _would_ be the only one. Sherlock hadn't told John, and while Sherlock almost certainly did not think of _John_ as his best friend, John had definitely given that sacred title to Sherlock. It hurt to think that he hadn't been as important to Sherlock as Sherlock was to him and that he'd been kept out of the loop because of it. 

Sherlock closed his eyes briefly, a look of surrender on his face as he forced the words out. "Couple of others." 

John lowered his head, breathing hard as he struggled to keep a hold on his temper. He didn't want to end up throttling Sherlock again, even if the man deserved it for lying to him. 

"It was a very elaborate plan." The words were rushed, Sherlock trying to fill the silence and slow the obviously rising tide of John's anger. "It had to be. There were thirteen possibilities -" 

"Who else?" John asked in a hopeless whisper, knowing that a 'very elaborate plan' would need more than Mycroft. He lifted his head to glare at Sherlock. He knew he was almost literally spearing Sherlock with his gaze and he didn't care. Sherlock could squirm in his discomfort; he deserved to. "Who else knew?" When Sherlock hesitated, John leaned closer and demanded, "Who?" 

It turned out that Molly Hooper, the pathology lab assistant at St. Bart's, had known along with quite a few of Sherlock's homeless network. Finding out that he'd been kept out of the loop that included nearly 30 people was more than John could take, and he ended up throwing himself across the table and grappling at Sherlock's jacket, intending to hurt the other man as much as Sherlock had hurt him. 

They ended up being thrown out of the cafe and, not an hour later, a kebab shop after John headbutted Sherlock in the nose for trying to lure him back with the promise of a new and exciting case. 

The worst part was that John had been tempted. Despite how angry he was, despite how betrayed he felt, and despite how hard it was for him to admit how addicted he was to Sherlock Holmes, he was tempted to join the detective again for another thrilling chase. And not just for the adrenaline surge that came with following Sherlock as he peeled back the layers of a crime to expose the core, although that was a part of it. No, John wanted to simply be around Sherlock again. He was as addicted to the man himself as he was to the cases that came with the man. 

He ended up catching a cab with Mary, unable to face another moment with Sherlock Holmes. John felt like he was being pulled in multiple directions, like a hunk of toffee. One part of him wanted to hurt Sherlock again, to ensure the other man was suffering as much as John himself had suffered over the last two years; another part of him wanted to forgive everything and return to the life he had so enjoyed before; and another part of him wanted to grab Sherlock by his lapels and plant an angry kiss on his lips. 

John cleared his throat, glancing over at Mary guiltily. It was that last urge that had sent John storming off to call the cab. How would it have looked to Mary, the woman he'd been seeing for the last six months, if he snogged his not-dead best friend? 

"Can you believe his nerve?" John asked, letting the full force of his betrayal out in his voice. 

"I like him," Mary said, turning to smile at John serenely. 

"What?" John asked, nonplussed. 

"I like him," Mary repeated, giving a little dismissive shrug before turning away to gaze out the cab's window at the passing shops. 

John turned to look out his own window, at a loss for what to say. After several silent blocks, Mary turned back to him and reached out, brushing her fingers along his forearm. "I think he's very brave, coming to you like that to tell you the truth after two years of silence. He came to you in a public place, not knowing how you'd react -" 

"Oh, no, Sherlock Holmes always knows how everything will go down," John said, giving a quick laugh that held no joy. "He plans for every eventuality." 

"That makes it even braver, then," Mary said. "He came to you in a public place knowing that you might reject him and attack him, but he felt like it was important enough to risk that so that her could let you to know that he was alive and that he'd done what he did with a purpose." 

John grimaced, looking away from Mary to stare down at his clasped hands in his lap. Mary's hand was still on his arm, her fingers tucked into the crook of his elbow, and John realized that he had not reached back towards her when she had reached out to him. Yesterday, he would have done so automatically. But then, yesterday Sherlock Holmes hadn't been back from the dead. 

John stared down at his loosely clasped hands, guilt rising up in him like a slow sickness, choking his breath off for a moment. He knew he should reach for Mary's hand, twine his fingers with hers, and take the comfort she was offering him. But he couldn't. He had always held some small part of himself back from her, some small kernel of himself that had been uniquely Sherlock's even if Sherlock would never claim it. Now that Sherlock was back, that small kernel was growing and John had no way of stopping it. 

_'He's alive,'_ John thought, turning his head to stare out at the darkness of the London night beyond the cab's window, finding comfort in the knowledge that Sherlock was out there in that night somewhere. _'He's still here. And I'm still here. That's the only thing that matters now.'_

John leaned into the seatback, still staring out the window as a faint smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. He was still angry and he still felt betrayed, but already he could feel his negative emotions melting away. Like always, John was forgiving Sherlock for being Sherlock, accepting the other man with all his quirks and thoughtless cruelties because to do otherwise would be to ask Sherlock to be something other than what he was. And what he was had been something John Watson had loved almost since the beginning, even if John could not admit it to himself openly. 

_'It's going to be okay,'_ John thought, closing his eyes and leaning his head back onto the seat, feeling Mary scooting closer to his side as he relaxed. _'He's back. It's all going to be okay.'_


	2. Where I Was Going Without You // 9th November 2013

John hadn't thought life would return to 'Sherlock Holmes-normal' so quickly, but in the five days since Sherlock had walked back into his life, he'd been thrown into a bonfire and pulled out by Sherlock after only a slight singeing, had found a massive bomb in a Tube tunnel beneath the Palace of Westminster and been nearly blown to bits, and had joined Sherlock before a crowd of the press to discuss thwarting a massive terrorist plot in London. It really was exactly how John expected his life with Sherlock Holmes to go and while it was slightly disconcerting how quickly it had all started up again, John was relieved to have things back to the way they'd been two years before. 

That was why it was so jarring for John when he walked into 221B Baker Street Saturday morning after their newest adventure and was greeted by the sound of retching that was so loud that he could hear it clearly from the other end of the flat. 

John hesitated a moment in the doorway to the sitting room, unsure if he was actually hearing what he thought he was hearing. When the sounds of pained retching came again, followed by spitting, John broke into a near jog through the flat, heading for the open bathroom door. 

He found Sherlock crouched over the toilet, pale and shaking. Sherlock was dressed in a t-shirt and pyjama pants, his dressing gown sliding off his shoulders. His curls were stuck to his face with sweat, there was stubble on his cheeks and jaw, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked absolutely awful, and John's first thought was, "Oh, God, he's back on drugs again. How did I miss the warning signs?' 

"Sherlock?" he asked, but another wave of retching cut off whatever John had been about to say. Sherlock clutched at the toilet with his right hand, his mangled left hand curling weakly against his chest as he dry-heaved, his stomach obviously emptied from the earlier waves of nausea that John had heard him suffering through when he'd first stepped into the flat. 

"Hello, John," Sherlock finally managed to say weakly, his head still dangling over the toilet bowl as he panted. 

"Sherlock, what the hell is going on?" John asked, but there was no anger in his voice. He sounded merely puzzled and he hesitated in the doorway to the bathroom, trying to decide if he needed to act righteously outraged or concerned for his friend's wellbeing. Sherlock raised his head from the toilet, meeting John's eyes. He didn't _look_ high. If anything, he seemed all-too-aware of his surroundings, his expression bleak and hopeless as he met John's concerned stare. 

"It's my hand," Sherlock said, lifting his trembling left hand slightly away from his chest. "It hurts. It almost never stops. Sometimes it doesn't hurt that much, and I'm able to concentrate on other things. But sometimes... right now..." Sherlock's face twisted and he gagged, leaning his face back over the toilet bowl. His body was wracked by dry heaves and John stepped into the room, shrugging out of his jacket and letting it fall to the floor as he went to his knees next to Sherlock, wrapping one arm around the other man to support him as Sherlock shuddered and heaved. 

"I'm here," John said, his voice soothing. "I'm right here." 

Sherlock finally spat into the toilet bowl and leaned back, letting his weight fall against John slightly. "It feels like my fingers are on fire," he said, his voice low and bleak. "I know they aren't there, but it feels like they are and that they're burning. I've tried everything I can think of: heat therapy, massage, relaxation techniques... you know, the pain can find me in my mind palace. I can't escape it even there." 

"Have you tried any prescription medications?" John asked, hesitating even as he voiced the question. It was dangerous to offer prescription medication to a recovering drug addict, but he couldn't stand watching Sherlock suffer so acutely. 

"I've been afraid to," Sherlock admitted. "What if it works and I'm forced to drug myself frequently to cope with the pain? What if it begins to impinge on The Work?" 

"Can you concentrate on a case when you're in this kind of pain?" John asked. He wanted to reach out and brush the damp curls from Sherlock's forehead, but he didn't think that kind of attention would be well received by the other man. He kept one arm around Sherlock's shoulders, letting Sherlock use him for support, glad that he was being allowed even that much. 

"No," Sherlock admitted. He gave a low groan, the thumb and two remaining fingers on his left hand curling into an abbreviated fist before he threw himself towards the toilet again, his entire body tightening as the waves of nausea rolled over him. 

It took almost an hour for Sherlock's pain to subside to the point where he was no longer racked with nausea. By that time, he was so weak from repeated dry heaves that he fairly collapsed into John's arms. John had difficulty getting Sherlock to his feet and was very glad the bathroom had a second door that led directly into Sherlock's bedroom; John did not feel at all confident in his ability to help Sherlock out the door to the hall and all the way around to the bed. 

Thankfully, John had to walk barely ten feet, both arms wrapped around Sherlock's torso and one of Sherlock's arms thrown over John's shoulder. They stumbled and weaved, Sherlock too unsteady on his feet to manage much more than a drunken shuffle. John lowered Sherlock onto his bed slowly, trying not to jar Sherlock's disfigured hand. 

"I'm going to make you some sweetened tea," John said. Sherlock didn't respond, laying prone on the bed with his hand held close to his chest. The dark circles under his eyes taunted John; he'd seen Sherlock three days before when they'd talk to the press on the pavement outside 221B. Had Sherlock slept at all in the hours since then? Had the pain been building over the last 72 hours until Sherlock ended up vomiting into the toilet because of it? "When's the last time you ate anything?" 

"I don't know," Sherlock said, his voice a colorless rumble. 

"Then I'll also boil you an egg. You need protein and sugar. Has a doctor looked at your hand?" 

"You're looking at it right now," Sherlock said, and John's eyes slid guiltily away from the scarred appendage and up to Sherlock's face again. Sherlock's eyes were closed and John wondered how he had known. But then, how did Sherlock know any of the impossible things he knew? 

"I don't count," John said. "I'm asking if you've ever had a doctor take a proper look at it to assess the damage." 

"What's the use? It's shattered. It's destroyed. I don't need a doctor to tell me that." 

"No, but you need a doctor to tell you if physical therapy might help you with your pain. Sherlock, you're being an idiot and after I've given you your tea and egg, we're going to the clinic I work at and you're getting your hand checked properly." 

Sherlock did not respond beyond a faint tightening of his lips. John walked from the bedroom, his steps heavy and determined, pausing to grab his jacket from the hall doorway to the bathroom so he could dig out his mobile and send a message to Mary. He had intended to stop by Sherlock's flat for a quick chat and perhaps lunch; now, he didn't intend to leave until he absolutely had to. 

_Plans have changed. I think we should cancel dinner tonight. I'll call you when I can. -JW_

John shoved his phone into one of his trouser's pockets and clicked the kettle on before heading to the refrigerator, hoping that someone had bothered to restock it since he had cleaned it out two years before when he moved out of the flat. 

Thankfully, there was a half-dozen eggs and a few other staples tucked on the shelves, along with a note from Mrs. Hudson encouraging Sherlock to make up a list of shopping to drop off with her. Thank God for Mrs. Hudson. 

When John returned to Sherlock's bedroom with heavily sweetened tea and a peeled hardboiled egg, he found Sherlock dozing, his face surprisingly open and innocent in his sleep. John stopped just beside the bed, lowering the food to the nightstand. Sherlock asleep was perhaps even more eye-catching than Sherlock awake, which was surprising because John had a lot of trouble taking his eyes off of Sherlock most days. Asleep, though, Sherlock's face lacked its usual guarded expression. He looked almost childlike as he dozed, his lips just slightly parted. The sweat-dampened curls were still stuck to his forehead and John reached out, fingertips just barely brushing against them as he gently moved them off of Sherlock's skin. 

John wanted to let him sleep, but getting him to a doctor for treatment seemed more important at the moment. John cleared his throat softly, murmuring Sherlock's name. Sherlock came awake abruptly and violently, his fists swinging out as John stepped quickly back. Sherlock came awake the way John had done when he first got home from Afghanistan, lashing out at invisible enemies. John could feel empathy and sorrow tightening his chest as he watched awareness seep slowly into Sherlock's eyes. His fists slowly relaxed as he looked around his bedroom, seeming to realize where he was. He looked over at John and for just the barest second, John saw his lips tremble with emotion. Then, Sherlock was rubbing his right hand briskly across his stubbled jaw, glancing over at the tea and egg waiting on his nightstand. 

"Sorry if I hit you," Sherlock said, and something in the way he said it made John suspect that he wasn't the first person Sherlock had taken a swing at upon awakening. 

"You didn't. I dodged," John said mildly. 

"Good. A few other people haven't managed to get out of the way quickly enough," Sherlock said. A small smile touched his mouth for a moment and he murmured, "Mycroft was very cross when it happened." 

"You hit Mycroft?" John asked, unable to stop the smile that stretched across his face. He didn't have anything in particular against Mycroft, but there was something hilarious in the idea of Sherlock clocking his older brother after being woken from a PTSD-fueled nightmare. 

"Twice," Sherlock said, raising his eyebrows as he met John's amused look. 

John gave a snort of laughter before he shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. "All right. I want you to eat that and drink all of that and then get dressed. I'm taking you to the clinic as soon as you're done." He turned to go but Sherlock's voice, low and soft, stopped him. 

"Would you... stay here while I eat?" Sherlock's legs were hanging off the edge of the bed, his bare toes curled on the floor rug, his hands pressing onto the mattress on either side of him. He was staring at John, his expression bleak as if he expected to be told 'no' outright. When John did not immediately respond, he said, "Sometimes, even when I'm awake, I'm not completely sure that I'm not still... still there. I wonder if maybe I'm actually dreaming this and that my nightmares are the reality." 

John felt his face twisting in sympathy; he knew what that was like, knew it intimately. He'd had plenty of nights where he'd woken himself up screaming, unsure if he was really awake in his small bedsit or if he'd just been knocked out by an IED blast nearby and he was bleeding to death on a stretch of sand somewhere while he dreamed he was back in London. "Yeah, of course. Of course, I'll stay," John said, and dragged over a chair that was tucked next to the wardrobe on the other side of the bedroom, settling it beside Sherlock's bed. 

They sat in silence as Sherlock ate, John looking down at his loosely clasped hands where they rested in his lap and trying not to think of what it meant that Sherlock's hand still hurt badly enough that it made him vomit. The wound was old enough that it had healed to a scar. True, the scar was still dark pink and painful-looking, but it had to be months old. That he was still having such severe pain from a wound that old meant that there had to be serious nerve damage and possibly scar tissue entangling the nerves in his hand. Sherlock would probably need some kind of surgery, if that were the case. 

When the last sugary dregs of tea had been drunk from the mug, Sherlock rose from the edge of the mattress, sliding his dressing gown off to toss it negligently across the bed. 

"I'll just go wait for you then," John said as he popped out of the chair and walked quickly over to the bedroom door, turning just before he stepped out. He meant to pull the door shut behind him, giving Sherlock some modicum of privacy, but the other man was already sliding out of his t-shirt. His back was to John and it took all of John's control not to make a noise when he saw the skin of Sherlock's back. John stepped quickly into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him, before he let out a shuddering breath. 

Sherlock's back had been a network of scar tissue. There were scars upon scars, some of them so dark that they looked as if the wounds had only been struck into Sherlock's flesh the week before, others a pink so pale as to be nearly white. But they covered nearly every inch of his back, crisscrossing one another in a horrible disarray. 

Sherlock had said he'd been beaten and cut when he'd been tortured, but John hadn't imagined it would be so... _much_. 

He dragged his palm down his face, wishing he could wipe away the image seared into his brain. How many sessions of torture had Sherlock endured? How long had he been beaten, hoping that someone would stop it? And then he'd come home and John himself had knocked him to the ground and tried to throttle him. 

John felt a twist of nausea in his own stomach. He had tackled Sherlock, made the man fall against the tortured flesh of his back while John sat upon him and tried to choke him. He'd wanted Sherlock to suffer the way John himself had suffered, had wanted to hurt Sherlock for lying to him. He didn't want that anymore. Sherlock had obviously suffered worse than John had during their two years apart. John had nearly drowned in his misery at the idea that his friend had chosen to fall to his death and that John hadn't been able to stop him, but Sherlock had been nearly destroyed by some tormentor that had left their signature across Sherlock's back in a twisting web of scar tissue. 

_'I'll find some way to make it up to him,'_ John promised himself, glancing back at the closed bedroom door. _'I'll fix this.'_


	3. Let It Slip Through // 24th November 2013

John's mobile buzzed in his trouser pocket, but he ignored it; it would be a message from Mary, and he simply didn't have the energy to deal with both her _and_ Sherlock at the moment.

"You can't just _stop_ going to physical therapy," John said, the words clipped as he fought against the rising anger threatening to spill out into his voice. 

They were in the sitting room of 221B, John standing next to the fireplace with his hands fisted at his sides while Sherlock paced violently back and forth from one end of the sitting room to the other. He was dressed in a button-up shirt and trousers, his dressing gown was thrown over the clothes, and his hair was in wild disarray as if he'd been running his hands through it before John had arrived twenty minutes earlier. He'd been smoking when John had walked into the flat and the evidence of multiple previous cigarettes were stuffed into a ceramic cereal bowl on the small table next to John's armchair. 

"It isn't helping me," Sherlock snapped, his movements sharp. John had gotten good at determining Sherlock's pain levels based on how tight his face seemed at any given moment and how sharp his movements were. When Sherlock looked relaxed and languid, it was a good bet that his pain was mild. On days when Sherlock's face looked pinched and his movements were sharp enough for John to cut himself on if he weren't careful, it meant that Sherlock's pain was ratcheting up to the point of vomiting or blacking out. 

John had been there the week before when Sherlock blacked out. He'd gone from groaning on the sofa to facedown on the floor between one blink and the next and for a moment, John had panicked, thinking Sherlock had died. He'd been thrust suddenly back into that horrible moment outside of St. Bart's, pushing his way through a crowd of people towards Sherlock's body splayed across the paving stones, knowing that there was absolutely no chance that Sherlock had survived his fall but hoping he was wrong as he reached towards his friend's wrist, seeking a pulse. 

When John had found a pulse at Sherlock's neck after the man collapsed on the floor of the flat, he had almost wept with relief. That was also the day John had stopped by the clinic to write out a prescription for co-codamol, a mixture of paracetamol and codeine, and given it to Sherlock to fill. 

"You've only been going to the physical therapy sessions for a few weeks," John pointed out, watching Sherlock fumble another cigarette out of the pack resting on the edge of the desk next to his laptop. His hands were shaking badly enough that it was amazing he managed. 

"And that's long enough for me to know that it isn't helping me," Sherlock snapped back, scrabbling with the lighter as he tried to get the cigarette lit, his shaking hands making the process much harder. "I've been going three times a week for three weeks, John. My hand isn't getting any better." 

"What about to co-codamol?" John asked. "Are you taking it when the pain gets bad?" 

"It doesn't help either," Sherlock nearly snarled, finally getting fed up with his failure with the lighter, tossing both it and the cigarette down onto the floor and turning away from them violently, his dressing gown swirling dramatically. 

"Then you need to go back in and see Dr. Wilkins again," John advised, his words sharper than he intended. He took a breath through his nose, fighting to calm himself. If they devolved into a shouting match, nothing would be done to help Sherlock. 

"That man is an idiot," Sherlock said, throwing himself onto the sofa and giving his back to John. 

"He's the clinic director," John said, his entire body tightening in offense, "and my boss." 

"And an idiot," Sherlock threw over his shoulder. "He thinks I can manage my pain with heat treatments and massages and imagining my hand whole and well and relaxed." Sherlock launched himself off the sofa, crossing the sitting room in four long strides and thrusting his mangled hand into John's face. "Does this look whole and well to you, John? Because the reality of my hand is that it is _ruined_ and no amount of visualization is going to change that." 

John reached up, catching Sherlock by the wrist and gently lowering the butchered hand down, keeping his fingers wrapped around Sherlock's wrist even once Sherlock's hand was no longer right in his face. 

"Then what would you have me do, Sherlock? Prescribe something stronger?" John hated even saying the words, but he hated even more watching Sherlock shaking and sweating as the pain of his ruined hand overcame him. 

"I don't know," Sherlock said, his voice strained. He met John's eyes without flinching, his expression desperate. "I don't know what I want except that I don't want to be in pain anymore." 

"We can try another formulation," John said, still holding loosely onto Sherlock's wrist. "Co-codomal is paracetamol and codeine. I could write you a prescription for co-dydramol; it's paracetamol and dihydrocodeine." 

"Fine," Sherlock said, reaching his good hand over to gently pry John's fingers from his wrist. John stepped back, instantly missing the feel of Sherlock's skin against his own and wishing he could reach out for Sherlock again. Here he was worrying about Sherlock falling into an addiction when he seemed to be building up one of his own. 

"I'll come back by the flat in a hour or so, once I've had the chance to stop by the clinic." John hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as he looked at Sherlock. The taller man was trembling, his expression bleak and his face pale as he stared back at John. "Look, I can't leave you like this." 

"Like what?" Sherlock demanded, giving a derisive laugh. "Shaking like an addict in need of a fix? Hollow-eyed and horrible to look at?" 

"Stop it," John said firmly. "You're shaking with pain. And you are _never_ horrible to look at." 

Sherlock's cheek twitched and he turned away from John, giving the other man his back again. John wanted to kick himself for saying something so blatantly complimentary. Sherlock wasn't an idiot; he wasn't always the most adept at deducing human emotions, but if John kept saying things like _that_ , Sherlock would figure it out and they'd have the same speech that Sherlock had given him on their very first evening together: 'I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work and while I am flattered by your interest,' et-cetera et-cetera. That was an experience John was quite happy to skip going through a second time, and he cleared his throat as he moved away from the fireplace, crossing towards the sitting room door. 

"If you want me to go, though, I won't overstay my welcome," John said, keeping his tone even. 

"I'd appreciate a swift return with the prescription," Sherlock said, and John shook his head, grabbing his jacket off the coat rack as he threw open the door and clattered downstairs. He did not notice Sherlock looking after him; in his own way, he was as blind to the longing in Sherlock's eyes as Sherlock was blind to John's ardent admiration. By the time John reached the front door of the flat, he could hear Sherlock resuming his helpless, frantic pacing upstairs. 


	4. Live Alone or In Between // 3rd December 2013

"Look, I'm sorry, but I'm not comfortable leaving the city right now," John said, glaring across the table at Mary. They were eating takeaway from Styrofoam containers in her flat. The meal had started jovially enough with both of them stealing bites from one another's containers, laughing and enjoying their first date night in nearly two weeks. But then Mary had suggested that they head out of town for Christmas in three weeks, explaining that her friend Janine - whom John had met only a handful of times - had invited them to her family's Christmas dinner, knowing that Mary didn't have family to spend the holidays with and that John rarely saw his family.

When John had declined, Mary had tried to push the issue, claiming that she hardly saw him anymore now that Sherlock was back. John knew it was true; he spent a lot of time at the flat with Sherlock. 

On Sherlock's good days, they were tearing through London on cases given to them by Greg Lestrade, a Detective Inspector with New Scotland Yard who admitted freely that he needed Sherlock's genius to help him crack the harder cases, or cases dug up from emails potential clients wrote to John. 

On Sherlock's bad days, John would sit with him while Sherlock rocked and moaned or vomited from the pain, his heart in his throat as he tried to figure out what he could do to help the other man besides simply not leaving Sherlock alone with his suffering. Occasionally on his bad days, Sherlock would doze off, coming awake abruptly in the grip of a PTSD-fueled nightmare. He had confessed to John that they were worse on the days when the pain in his hand was a constant, shrieking reminder of what had been done to him. 

The idea of leaving London for a week, abandoning Sherlock in his flat to suffer alone, made John feel sick. He couldn't do it. 

"This is getting ridiculous," Mary snapped, throwing her fork into her Styrofoam container of takeaway. "You're not _comfortable_ leaving the city? Why on earth would you be _uncomfortable_ leaving the city unless there's some problem between us that you're not talking about?" 

"No, it's not you," John said quickly, reaching across the table for her hand. Mary pulled her hands away, crossing her arms tightly across her chest as she glared at John. 

"If it's not me, then it must be Sherlock," she said, glaring at John. "Ever since he's been back, you've been canceling dates and disappearing for hours at a time. I know he's your friend and I know you enjoyed your exciting, criminal-chasing life with him, but you have a _new_ life now." 

"I don't _want_ a new life!" John snapped as he tossed his own fork down into his food, and then froze, his eyes flicking up to Mary's face. 

The fury in her expression was impossible to misinterpret. She shoved away from the table and stormed from the kitchen, shouting back over her shoulder, "Get out of my bloody flat!" 

John hesitated. There had to be something he could say to make up with her. He had to be able to explain that he didn't mean he didn't want her in his life, just that he didn't want life to change completely. But his phone buzzed in his pocket, alerting him of a new text, and he pulled it out in a rush, knowing who the text would be from. 

_Come quickly. -SH_

John grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair, abandoning the takeaway containers on Mary's kitchen table as he rushed from the flat, responding to Sherlock's summons without hesitation. 

The cab ride to Baker Street felt like it took forever. With the start of December, Christmas shoppers had begun pouring out in force and the traffic was snarled with people trying to get to one last store before they closed for the evening. 

John took the stairs two at a time as he thundered up to Sherlock's flat. He expected to find Sherlock hovering over the toilet bowl again, but what greeted him when he burst into the sitting room was almost worse: Sherlock was sitting on the floor next to one of the sitting room windows, his face in his hands and his knees pulled up to his chest. On the floor at his feet lay his beautiful Stradivarius violin, shattered into pieces. 

"Jesus, Sherlock, what happened?" John asked, moving cautiously towards the other man. 

Sherlock lifted his face from his hands, wrapping his arms around his knees. His cheeks were dry but his eyes were red and wet. "I can't play." 

"What?" 

"My hand. My _hand!_ " And Sherlock lifted his mangled left hand, holding it accusingly towards John. "I can't play!" 

John sank slowly onto his armchair, staring in horror at Sherlock and then down at the shattered violin. He could feel his chest tightening with sympathy and sorrow; Sherlock's beautiful compositions, all the hours he'd put into his music, every lovely note that had kept John awake half the night when Sherlock was in a playing mood... all of it was gone. 

He heard Sherlock's breath hitch and lifted his gaze from the splinters of polished wood that had once been a violin to see a tear rolling down Sherlock's face. It hit John like a fist to his gut and he made a wounded noise, coming out of his chair to step past Sherlock's armchair and fall to his knees in front of Sherlock. He hesitated for only a second before wrapping his arms around Sherlock's shoulders; he could no more ignore Sherlock's emotional pain in that moment than he could have walked from the flat the month before when he'd first heard Sherlock vomiting from the physical pain of his mutilated hand. 

Sherlock went stiff as John's arms went around his shoulders but then he was unfolding his own arms from around his legs and sliding them around John's waist, his face pressing into John's shoulder. Sherlock cried out, his voice tortured as his hands clenched into the material of John's button-up beneath his jacket. John stayed still, letting Sherlock scream against his chest, letting Sherlock's hands dig and twist at the back of his shirt, letting Sherlock's tears wet his shoulder. John knew Sherlock wasn't just crying for his violin or his hand but for months of torture and for nights of coming awake with screams on his lips. 

"I'm here," John said, his voice low and rough as he fought against his own tide of emotions. He tightened his arms minutely around Sherlock's shoulders, feeling the trembles running through Sherlock's muscles as the other man mourned everything he had lost. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." 

For several long minutes, Sherlock wept and screamed his pain against John, stopping only when his voice became hoarse. Finally, he sniffled and lifted his head from John's chest. John sat back on his heels, sliding his hands to Sherlock's shoulders. 

"Better?" he asked, looking into Sherlock's tear-washed eyes, his brow creasing as he tried to assess the other man's mood. 

Sherlock didn't respond, his eyes locked on John's. After a moment, his gaze ticked down to John's mouth and something like determination swept across Sherlock's features. John had only a second to realize what was happening before Sherlock's mouth descended on his, firm and demanding. 

John's hands tightened on Sherlock's shoulders as he opened his mouth to the sudden onslaught of Sherlock's need, waves of delighted shivers sweeping over him as he thought, _'Good God, yes. Finally.'_

John let himself get lost in the taste of Sherlock's mouth, the firmness of Sherlock's lips, the sweep of Sherlock's tongue on his. He could not think of anything but how desperately Sherlock was kissing him, how frantically he was returning Sherlock's kisses, and how _right_ it felt that he could slide his hands from Sherlock's shoulders up to his dark curls, fingers combing through them to cup just behind Sherlock's ears. John sucked Sherlock's lower lip into his mouth for a moment, tonguing against it until Sherlock moaned. The sound went straight through John, making him feel almost desperate, and he slid his tongue into Sherlock's mouth to tease against the other man's as Sherlock went almost boneless against him. 

After several minutes, Sherlock broke the kiss, breathing hard as he rested his forehead against John's. John was panting, too, eyes shut as he basked in the moment. Four years of frustration had been blown away in one sudden, surprising rush. 

The sound of John's mobile buzzing with an incoming text was unnaturally loud in the silence that followed their intense kisses, and John jerked back from Sherlock as his eyes went wide. Mary. 

"Shit," John whispered, pushing to his feet and stepping away from Sherlock. The other man watched him, his face expressionless except for a slight tightening around his eyes. "I can't... Sherlock, I'm _engaged_." 

Sherlock didn't respond. He sat on the floor, his legs folded to one side and his body hunched slightly. His hands had slid from their hold on John's shirt when John stood and they lay on his knees like fallen leaves, palms up and fingers slightly cupped as if they were waiting to be filled. 

Sherlock's dark curls were mussed from John's fingers combing through them. His lips were reddened and swollen from the force of their kisses. There was the faintest flush riding over his high cheekbones. He looked completely delectable... but John _couldn't_. 

John backed away slowly, unable to take his eyes off of Sherlock. He stumbled into his armchair and had to grab hold of the back to keep from falling over. 

John had never been the type of man to cheat on his partner, not once they'd both committed to a monogamous relationship. But here he was, snogging another man after walking out of his fiancée's flat on the tail of a fight. 

John turned away from Sherlock; he couldn't go on staring at him slouched miserably on the floor, looking as broken as his Stradivarius. John shoved his hand angrily into his pocket, pulling his mobile out. He read the message and then reread it, not believing his eyes. 

_I understand he's your best friend, but you either have to cut back on how much you see him or I'm going to assume our relationship doesn't mean as much to you as it does to me. I won't be your second best. He doesn't need you like I do. I hope I hear from you soon. -Mary x_

John wanted to throw his mobile across the room but settled for thrusting it violently back into his jacket pocket. Mary was giving him a bloody _ultimatum_. He began pacing, needing an outlet for his sudden anger, but he'd only taken a few steps towards the sofa across the room when Sherlock said, "Don't go. I won't try that again. I'm... sorry." 

John froze, hands clenching into fists at his sides. Sherlock, wracked with both physical and emotional pain, was apologizing to him for finally doing exactly what John had been wanting him to do for four years. John turned to stare at Sherlock as the other man carefully rose to his feet, steadying himself by resting his mutilated left hand on the edge of the sitting room table. His laptop rested on top of the table next to his hand, and Sherlock rubbed his fingertips over the closed lid, staring down at the laptop and avoiding looking at John. 

John reached into his pocket, running his thumb across the screen of his mobile repetitively, turning Mary's text over in his mind. 

"I'm not leaving," John said finally, taking his phone out of his pocket and thumbing in a message in reply to Mary's text. 

_I'll call you later then? -JW_

"When's the last time you ate something?" John asked. "How's your pain level today?" 

"Dr. Watson," Sherlock said softly, his expression weary as he looked up from studying the closed lid of his laptop, "my pain is tolerable today, and I ate breakfast." He paused, brow creasing as his eyes slid off John, staring at nothing in particular. "What day is it?" 

"Tuesday," John said. 

"Well, I had breakfast yesterday." 

"I'm making tea," John said, shrugging out of his jacket as he walked into the kitchen, hanging it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. "And toast." 

"Why aren't you rushing back to Mary's side?" Sherlock asked, following after John slowly. His expression was guarded and he stopped in the kitchen doorway, resting one hand against the doorframe as he watched John flipping on the kettle and putting slices of bread into the toaster. "That _was_ Mary texting, wasn't it?" 

"It was," John confirmed, pulling a couple of tea mugs out of the cabinet and setting them on the counter next to the heating kettle. 

"And yet you're here, _mothering_ me," Sherlock said, almost spitting the word. 

"Because I want to be here," John said, turning to glare at Sherlock. "Although, the way you're acting, I'm somewhat doubting the wisdom of my choices." 

Sherlock snapped his mouth shut, his eyes shifting away from John and skimming through the kitchen, looking for a change in topic. "Kettle's boiling." 

"I can see that," John said, tossing a couple of tea bags into the mugs; there was no reason to stand on ceremony when he was just making tea for the two of them. He poured boiling water over the bags and turned to deal with the toast. 

Surprisingly, Sherlock kept his mouth shut while John worked. Once he had the toast buttered, he set the butter knife down on the countertop and cleared his throat before looking back over at Sherlock. "Mary gave me an ultimatum. She wants me to stop spending so much time with you so that I can focus on making her my number one priority." 

"Oh," Sherlock said, the word carefully blank. 

"And I... can't do it," John said, his own words slow and deliberate as he stared hard at Sherlock, wondering how explicit he would have to be to get his point across. 

"You can't...?" Sherlock tipped his head slightly to one side, obviously not following the conversation. 

"Make her my number one priority." 

"I don't understand." 

"I can't make her my number one priority... because she isn't." John could tell Sherlock still wasn't getting his point and he sighed softly, adding, "You are." 

The look of shock on Sherlock's face would have been comical if it hadn't been such a sad reaction. It was obvious that Sherlock had never thought he could be John's first priority and John's admission had completely thrown him. 

"Now come eat your toast and drink your tea. We need to talk about the co-dydramol and your pain levels the last few weeks. We'll have to shove some of these test tubes over, first, though." 

Sherlock didn't argue, moving obediently over to sit at the table, pushing several racks of test tubes and a couple of Petri dishes aside to make room for the mugs of tea and plates of toast. His eyes didn't leave John the entire time. 


	5. To Get to the Future from Here // 4th January 2014

John had spent New Year's Eve holding Sherlock as the other man shook with pain on the floor of the bathroom, occasionally lunging for the toilet when the waves of pain twisted his stomach like a wet towel, wringing everything out of it. When the ball dropped, John was dozing with his back against one wall of the bathroom, Sherlock's head pillowed in his lap as he dozed between dry heaves.

The co-dydramol wasn't helping. On Sherlock's very bad days, the medication didn't even begin to dull his pain. John felt sure that Sherlock's suffering was exacerbated by his poor eating and sleeping habits, but Sherlock had spent the majority of his life ignoring the needs of his body and it was hard for him to get used to listening to the subtle hunger and exhaustion cues his body gave. 

John spent the Saturday after New Year's Day clearing things out of his flat and moving back to 221B Baker Street. It meant that for the next couple of months, he'd still be leasing a flat in which he wasn't living, but John didn't care; after holding a pale, shaking Sherlock for hours on New Year's Eve, John wanted to be nearby more than he wanted to be practical. 

He also took the time to stop by the clinic at which he worked three days a week. The co-dydramol was obviously not controlling Sherlock's pain, so John wrote out a prescription for morphine tablets, hoping both that the medication would help control Sherlock's pain and that he wasn't setting the other man up for another fall into addiction. 

Sherlock obviously felt trepidation about taking strong painkillers. He took one look at the prescription when John handed it to him and his eyes went wide. He looked up at John, the panic is his pale blue-green eyes obvious, already shaking his head faintly. "John, I don't think this would be wise." 

"The co-dydramol isn't helping you, Sherlock. This is the next step. You just have to make sure you're only taking it when the pain is bad enough to warrant medicating. I can't stand by and watch you suffer anymore, though, not when we still have options for controlling it." 

Sherlock folded the prescription, shoving it into his trouser pocket as he turned away from John. He walked towards the sitting room table, reaching out and then stopping abruptly, a look of pain crossing his face. It took John a second to realize that Sherlock had been reaching for his violin; he often played when he needed to think, and the decision to take strong painkillers was one Sherlock would not make lightly, not with his past addiction. 

Sherlock turned away from the table, his expression pained, before walking past John and through the flat to his bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him. Knowing he wouldn't be of any use to Sherlock while the man thought, John headed out to resume moving the last of his things from his old flat across the city. 

John brought in the last box of clothes into 221B around dinnertime and was surprised to smell Chinese when he stepped into the sitting room. He set his cardboard box down on the sofa before heading into the kitchen. Sherlock was standing next to the table, half of it cleared of science experiments to make room for several boxes of takeaway, looking inordinately pleased with himself. 

"You ordered takeaway?" John asked, standing stunned in the doorway to the kitchen as the rich scent of sesame seed oil and cooked vegetables filled the room. 

"You've been asking me to eat more," Sherlock said, his words slightly slurred. John looked up from the takeaway boxes, his eyes taking in Sherlock's relaxed expression and easy posture. 

"How's the morphine working?" John asked, keeping his tone carefully neutral. 

"Very well," Sherlock confessed. He paused, eyes focusing on John's expression, although they weren't nearly as piercing as John was used to them being when Sherlock was focusing on him. "My hand isn't hurting right now, John. I can almost forget that nearly half of it is missing." 

John swallowed thickly. Lack of pain had been what he'd been aiming for. It was a good thing to know that Sherlock wasn't hurting at the moment. But, John still felt trepidation. He'd given opiates to someone who'd once been an active drug user, even if John wasn't aware of exactly what substance had been Sherlock's drug of choice. He had to trust that Sherlock could manage it, though. He had to trust. 

They ate silently, Sherlock mostly moving his moo goo gai pan from one side of the plate to the other and only occasionally managing to actually take a bite. Watching the normally focused man behaving so vaguely was making John feel slightly ill and he did not manage to eat much more than Sherlock. Nearly all the takeaway went into the refrigerator at the end of the meal. 

John normally spent evenings in the sitting room with Sherlock until he was too exhausted to stay awake. At least, that had been their habit before Sherlock's fall from the top of St. Bart's and their two years apart. Having moved back into the flat again, John felt as if things should go back to their pre-fall normal... and yet he still found himself moving towards the sitting room door to head up to his bedroom. 

Sherlock noticed, of course. Even riding high on morphine, Sherlock was unusually aware of John. He spoke from across the room, sitting in his black leather armchair and looking incredibly peaceful for the first time in months. "You're going to bed already?" 

"I um... " John trailed off. There was no way to end that sentence that wouldn't be a lie, and telling Sherlock the truth was out of the question. How could he tell Sherlock he was second-guessing his decision to give Sherlock easy access to heavy prescription painkillers? 

"I was hoping..." Sherlock began, his voice trailing off almost immediately. "No, nevermind. Sorry. Good night." 

The apology was so completely out of Sherlock's usual character that John stepped back into the sitting room, moving over to stand near the coffee table. "What were you hoping?" 

"You've been... holding me when the pain was bad. I was hoping... would you want to hold me now?" 

John was instantly alert, stepping over to Sherlock's chair, raising his hands to reach for Sherlock's damaged hand. "Are you in pain? Is the morphine not working?" 

"No, no," Sherlock said, moving his hand away from John. "I'm not in any pain right now. I wanted to know if you still had any desire to be close to me when I wasn't in need of a physician's touch. I suppose _that_ was my answer, though." Sherlock looked away, his face tightening down as he tried to conceal the obvious disappointment in his expression. 

John stopped, blinking in shock as he rocked back onto his heels. His hands fell to his sides, hanging limply as he took in what Sherlock was saying. Had Sherlock Holmes just asked for a _cuddle?_

"I uh..." John stopped and then cleared his throat, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we'll both fit on your chair." 

Sherlock's eyes ticked up to John, his head still turned mostly away. He looked as if he were struggling not to hope that John was saying what he thought John might be saying. 

"We should probably move to the sofa," John said, inclining his head to indicate it across the room. 

Sherlock hesitated, tapping the fingers of his right hand against the arm of his chair for a moment as he stared at John. Abruptly he pushed to his feet and John had to step back to avoid having Sherlock pressed up against him. Sherlock brushed past him and moved over to stand in front of the sofa before he glanced back at John. "Are you coming?" 

"Yeah. Of course, yeah," John said, stepping quickly over to join Sherlock. They stood uncomfortably in front of the sofa for a moment before John realized _one_ of them was going to have to make the first move and he sat down, opening his arms in mute invitation. 

Sherlock sank down next to John, his left hip and thigh pressed against John's right hip and thigh tightly enough that they couldn't have slipped a piece of paper between them. He leaned stiffly into John's arms, his own arms tucked against his chest with his hands pressed between his knees. John bit down on a laugh; it was perfectly obvious that Sherlock had never tried anything like this before other than when John held him while he was hurting, and it was hard for him to be pliant when he wasn't writhing and half out of his mind with pain. 

"Relax," John said, his voice gentle as he reached one hand up to run it lightly through Sherlock's curls, fluffing them. "Don't sit so stiffly. Let your body fold into mine. Get yourself comfortable and I'll adjust if I need to, okay?" 

Sherlock hesitated and then he was shifting himself carefully, adjusting himself as he tried to get into a more comfortable position. He ended up with his head laid against John's right shoulder, his hands resting against John's chest, and his legs folded up on the sofa next to him. John carefully wrapped his arm around Sherlock, his hand cupping Sherlock's far shoulder in a tentative embrace. Sherlock, however, seemed to take it all in stride, snuggling more firmly against John and making a soft, contented noise low in his throat. 

"Is this good?" John asked, hoping that Sherlock was getting his need for physical touch met. Sherlock made another rumbling sound of contentment, his ruined left hand gripping onto the front of John's jumper. John smiled faintly, letting himself relax into the comfortable sofa and the warmth of Sherlock's body against his. He raised his hand from Sherlock's shoulder, slowly drawing his fingers through the dark curls that were within reach. 

He had never imagined this was a possibility four years before when he'd agreed to be flatmates with Sherlock. He'd entertained a few fantasies in the early days, when all he really knew was that his new flatmate was gorgeous, brilliant, and a bit prickly. As time went on, though, and John got to know Sherlock better, he'd realized that Sherlock hated casual touches and was most certainly not the cuddling type. John had pushed most of his occasional daydreams about Sherlock curling up on the sofa with him after a long day to the back of his mind, refusing to acknowledge them except on rare occasions. 

And now, Sherlock was curled against him like a contented cat. Moreover, Sherlock had asked for this. John closed his eyes, happiness swelling inside of his chest until it was almost hard to breathe around it. Maybe this could be their new normal. Maybe things could be good. 


	6. Something Other Than the Desperation // 21st January 2014

John hadn't ever thought he was the type who deserved a happy ending to his story. After all, he'd spent most of his life fighting against awful things; when you spend all your time facing off against dragons, it's hard to believe that there is anything but fire in the world.

He'd spent his childhood protecting his mother and sister from a father who turned abusive every time he fell into a bottle, taking the blows when he was too small to defend himself and eventually learning how to turn the attacks away, preventing the blows from landing until his father had exhausted himself from trying to hurt his son and stumbled away to sleep off his rage. 

He'd spent his years at university trying to break up every obviously unbalanced brawl he saw, often beating the bullies until they had all learned to watch out for John Watson when he approached. 

He spent five years as a doctor, trying to beat death. He'd pushed himself to work longer hours and had studied medical texts and journals until the words blurred before his over-taxed eyes. He'd fought to cut out cancers and to repair injuries until he'd realized that he was fighting a losing battle by trying to beat death. So he'd joined the military; if you can't stop death, why not stop injustice? 

He hadn't had much time on the field; the military respected doctors too much to waste them as canon fodder. Most of his time had been spent in an adrenaline-fueled terror pitch while patching up injured boys ten years younger than him or in an endless slog of drudgery, handing out lozenges and tissues to soldiers with head colds. Occasionally, he was sent out to help when there were several wounded soldiers needing attention in the field and those were the times that John felt the most alive. The sound of bullets and explosions fueled him with equal parts of adrenaline and terror, and he felt as if he did his best patch-up jobs when he was under fire. 

Of course, that was until he became one of the wounded soldiers needing attention in the field, a single bullet tearing through his shoulder and leaving him bleeding into Afghanistan's thirsty desert sand. 

Without the adrenaline to balance out the terror, John found that terror was all there was. He began showing signs of PTSD even before his shoulder wound was fully healed, but he hid them from the higher ups and was put back into rotation, patching up the wounded and handing out tissues. Unfortunately, one of the nurses dropped a tray of instruments when John was in the middle of fixing up a young woman's leg after an IED had gone off just a little too close to her, and John had blacked out. 

When he'd come to, he'd been huddled against one wall of the surgery, his throat raw from screaming. He'd had a slight limp when he'd left the operating theatre. That, combined with a faint tremor in his right hand and the fact that he'd nearly left a patient to die on his table, led to him being invalided out of military service. 

It all combined to make John Watson pessimistic about his chances of a Happily Ever After. However, he was having a hard time holding on to his pessimism as his life with Sherlock slowly grew into a new and better normal. 

On days when his pain was manageable, Sherlock and John worked on cases and cuddled together on the sofa in the evenings. On the days when his pain was bad, Sherlock took a morphine tablet and they spent the entire day on the sofa or curled together in either John or Sherlock's bed. Slowly, they moved from cuddles to stroking, their hands skimming lightly over arms, legs, through hair... but everything was always chaste. Taking his cues from Sherlock, John had decided that their new normal was 'you can touch, but not anything that could lead to sex.' 

The only downside to the new normal, John thought, was that he was wanking quite a bit more than he used to do. As much as he enjoyed curling up with a pliant and relaxed Sherlock, it was incredibly frustrating at the same time. So much close contact and stroking, but there hadn't been any more kisses since the incredible series of desperate and passionate kisses that they had engaged in early on in December, and none of the cuddling and petting had led to anything other than a general feeling of calm well-being. John enjoyed that, but he was also a normal bloke with a healthy sexual appetite. After three weeks of being in... whatever it was he was in with Sherlock, John was beginning to feel frustrated. 

But he wasn't going to tell Sherlock that. He had never expected to end up cuddled in a bed next to Sherlock; he had always thought it was something that Sherlock wouldn't be interested in. Sherlock didn't feel things like most people. That was why John's daydreams of Sherlock had always been something he pushed to the back of his mind. 

And yet, now they spent at least several hours every single day cuddling together. John was incredibly grateful for what Sherlock was willing to do. To ask for more might push Sherlock beyond what he was capable of giving, and John couldn't do that. 

But he was getting incredibly and increasingly frustrated with how much wanking he was having to do. 

The obvious cure was to go out for a one-night stand with some random woman. John wouldn't have said no to a handsome bloke, although somehow that felt worse to John than having sex with a woman. It strangely felt more like cheating on Sherlock if it was a man, even though they had never explicitly stated that they were in a committed relationship. It almost didn't matter that they hadn't given whatever it was they had a name; it was still the most important thing in John's life. 

Anonymous sex with someone he'd never see again wasn't really what John wanted, and he knew it. What he wanted was sex with Sherlock, but that almost certainly wasn't going to happen. He was beginning to believe that Sherlock was asexual, and John would hate himself if he tried to push Sherlock past what he was comfortable with. A one-night stand was an acceptable second-best option. 

John broached the topic one evening when he and Sherlock were curled up on the sofa together. Sherlock had brought a book with him and was resting his cheek on John's thighs as he read, gently rubbing his palm over John's knee when he wasn't turning a page. 

John cleared his throat softly but Sherlock didn't lower his book. John plowed ahead anyway; he'd almost certainly have Sherlock's full attention soon. 

"I was thinking... well, mostly I was wondering what it is we have here, exactly?" 

"What do you mean?" Sherlock murmured, turning a page of his book. 

"What are we now, Sherlock? Not just flatmates. Not just friends. Are we in a relationship?" 

"I suppose so," Sherlock said, his voice mildly thoughtful. "I hadn't stopped to quantify it. Do you _need_ a name for it?" 

"Yeah, I do," John admitted. "I like knowing where I stand." 

"All right. We're in a relationship," Sherlock said, calmly agreeing as he shifted his book slightly to make his arm more comfortable and allow him to go on reading. 

"Okay, great. But... Sherlock, I can't go on like this without a change." 

"Mmm. My neck is beginning to get stiff, actually, so I wouldn't mind shifting around." Sherlock closed his book, keeping his index finger tucked inside it to hold his place as he began to wiggle and twist around, pushing his bare feet against the sofa to worm his way up John's body so he could lean his head on John's chest while he read. Unfortunately, it was rubbing and wiggling an awful lot of Sherlock against John's groin. It was torturous, especially with how much John's sexual desires had become singularly focused on Sherlock now, and John clenched his jaw, trying not to let on what was happening to him and hoping Sherlock wouldn't notice. 

He realized the game was up when Sherlock abruptly stopped trying to reposition himself, going absolutely still with the side of his ribcage resting against John's erection. 

"Ah," Sherlock said, and John thought he could see a faint flush working its way up Sherlock's cheeks. 

"Yeah. That uh... that's actually the problem," John admitted. "I love the cuddling. It's been really good. But I need more than that. I was thinking maybe I could go out once a week and maybe chat up a woman in a pub, go back to her place for a one-night stand." 

Sherlock had been holding still as he listened to John, but he became absolutely frozen in place once John finished talking. After a brief pause, he slowly leaned forward, dragging himself off of John's lap until he was sitting on the sofa next to the other man. He carefully set his book down on the coffee table, staring down at his feet on the floor. 

"A woman?" 

"Any woman. A random woman. Just someone I can get off with," John said. 

"I see." Sherlock's voice was toneless, but John could see a muscle in his cheek twitching. "Of course. You... like women." 

"Yeah, they're nice," John said, reaching up to scratch at his jaw. This was going better than he'd thought. "We could set ground rules, if that helps? I mean, I'll obviously use condoms... but if there's anything else you want me to do or not do while I'm out, please, let me know. I just can't go on like _this_ anymore. All the cuddling is great, really, but it's leaving me feeling really... frustrated. I need more." 

"Of course, you do," Sherlock said. He pressed his lips, taking a deep breath through his nose. "Would it be out of line for me to ask that you not repeat a conquest? One-night stands only." 

"That's fine," John agreed readily; he was only looking for someone to get off with. He had no desire to get to know anyone he had sex with any more intimately than he had to. 

"Never here," Sherlock said, his voice going suddenly tight. "You... can't ever bring them here." 

"I wasn't going to," John admitted. God, he'd never be able to concentrate on sex with a random woman if he knew Sherlock was just a flight of stairs away from him. It would be like agreeing to eat sand when there was a three course meal waiting in the next room. 

"You won't spend the night with them, either," Sherlock said, and the tightness in his voice was so pronounced that it almost sounded like he was being strangled. "You'll come back to the flat. You'll sleep in my bed." 

"Oh," John said, startled. He hadn't yet spent a night sleeping next to Sherlock, so the request was truly surprising. Would they be sharing a bed from now on? God, if only. But, fortune favored the brave; he'd never know if he didn't ask. "Only on nights that I've been out, though, right?" 

Sherlock made a soft noise, almost as if the air had suddenly been squeezed from his lungs, and he bent forward over his own knees. John realized Sherlock was gasping for breath and he quickly scooted closer, resting a hand on Sherlock's back. "Jesus, Sherlock, what's going on? Is the pain back?" 

Sherlock's shoulders began shaking and for a moment, John felt panic rising up in his chest. Was Sherlock going to have a bad evening? Should he get the bottle of morphine? But then he realized Sherlock was laughing mirthlessly, the sound tight and raw. 

"Am I in pain? Yes, John, I find I am in quite a shocking amount of pain. And it's all self-inflicted, that's the most hilarious part of it all." Sherlock sat up, his arms pulled in tight to his stomach. "I, also, have been enjoying curling up on the sofa or in a bed with you. I had convinced myself that perhaps things were changing between us, but now you've come to me asking if I'd mind you going out for a shag now and then. It shouldn't surprise me, I suppose; I've known your sexual orientation since the beginning. I had hoped... but you like women. I'm more like your... pet, a thing to rest with and stroke at the end of a long day." 

"Stop. Stop!" John was holding his hands up, palms out to Sherlock. "You are _not_ a pet to me, Sherlock. I just can't go on acting like I don't have sexual desires. So, yeah, I think going out with women occasionally is the best way to deal with it. I suppose I could try to find some men, but it seems worse somehow. It would feel like a betrayal." 

"Men?" Sherlock repeated, the pain melting off his face to be replaced with surprise. 

"I don't go for them as much as a rule," John admitted, "but there have been a few in my past, yeah. It just takes a really special bloke to get me interested." 

"Oh, I see," Sherlock said, and that strangled sound was back in his voice again. "You will have sex with women and with really special men." 

"But I won't even be trying to chat up men," John said, wanting to reach out to soothe the horrible tightness out of Sherlock's voice but somehow afraid to try. Sherlock had thrust his hands into his hair, gripping the curls tight as he sometimes did when overwhelmed with frustration at a problem he couldn't solve. "It wouldn't feel right, not with you..." 

" _Fuck!_ " Sherlock screamed, and it was one of the first epithets John had ever heard from the man. John reared back, shocked, as Sherlock rose violently from the sofa and stalked across the sitting room to lean his forearms against the brickwork around the fireplace, his forehead pressing against his arms. He was breathing hard again, his chest heaving as he turned halfway around to look back at John. The sight of tears caught in Sherlock's eyes hit John with a physical heaviness and he heard his own breath huff out of him. 

"You're crying," John said, the words emotionless with his surprise. 

"I believe it is an appropriate response when the person with whom you're in a relationship asks if it's okay that he go out and have sex with people who aren't you, people that you can never be because you _aren't a woman!_ " 

John froze, mouth dropping open. He replayed the conversation they'd been having in his head, feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach as he realized that he and Sherlock had been having two completely different conversations. 

"Sherlock... why do you think I'm asking to go out and have one-night stands?" 

"Because you're not gay, John. Something you've pointed out multiple times." 

"Right, I'm _not_ gay. I'm bi." 

"But only for 'really special men,'" Sherlock repeated, making the words sound mocking. 

"You think you don't fit into that category?" John asked, unable to believe that it needed saying. "Sherlock, I don't understand how you don't know this, but I'm absolutely mad over you. If I thought you had an interest in sex, I think I could happily spend the rest of my life in bed with you. But you don't do things like -" 

John broke off because Sherlock was stalking across the sitting room towards him, his expression hard. He dropped down to his knees in front of John, gripping John's biceps in his hands firmly as he stared into John's face. "Tell me that you want me in your bed." 

"I... what? Of course, I do. I've wanted you practically since the first time you deduced my entire history from a mobile and the way I walked." 

"Tell me you don't want to have sex with other people." 

"If I could have you, I don't honestly think I'd want anyone else ever again," John confessed, feeling a flush rising up his cheeks as he laid himself bare, wishing suddenly for a hole in the ground to hide himself in. 

But that was when Sherlock pressed forward, catching John's lips with his own in a soft, hesitant kiss. The brush of his lips against John's, smooth and warm and absolutely amazing, had John's hands coming up to grip the front of his button-up. Sherlock opened his mouth slightly and John responded automatically, opening his own to give Sherlock access. Sherlock's tongue flicked against his lower lip, teasing, and then slid along the inside of his upper lip. John groaned softly, tugging at his fistfuls of shirt, trying to deepen the kiss. Sherlock responded, his tongue sweeping into John's mouth to brush against John's lightly. John's heart was hammering in his chest and he let go of Sherlock's shirt to slide his hands slowly around the other man's sides, resting his palms against Sherlock's lower back as they fed at each other's mouths. 

Sherlock finally pulled back, panting. His pupils were blown huge and black as he stared at John from inches away. His lips were slightly swollen from the intensity of the kisses, and John fought back an urge to lean out and run the tip of his tongue along the cupid's bow on Sherlock's upper lip. 

"Amazing," John whispered. 

"I thought you hadn't enjoyed kissing me," Sherlock said, his voice a low rumble. 

"What? No, I - that was fantastic. You haven't tried to kiss me again since the first time... you thought I didn't enjoy it?" John was babbling, completely floored at Sherlock's admission. 

"You broke the last kiss." 

"Yeah, because my ex-fiancée had texted me," John said, his voice thin with disbelief. "That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it." 

"I thought you only liked women," Sherlock said. "I wasn't even surprised when you said you needed to start having sex with them; I had been expecting it for some time. It was becoming increasingly obvious that your sexual appetites were in need of attention." 

"It uh... obvious? What do you mean?" John asked, stiffening slightly. 

"John, the shower is next to my bedroom. Do you have any idea how distracting it is to listen to you getting off while I'm trying to get dressed?" 

"Christ," John whispered, lowering his head until his forehead was pressed into Sherlock's shoulder. 

"It's been years since I've had to masturbate regularly," Sherlock murmured against the shell of John's ear, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin as he spoke. "Every time I heard you in the shower, though, I couldn't resist the urge." 

The words went straight from John's ear to his prick. He was hard in seconds, breathing unsteadily as he realized what Sherlock was saying. He lifted his head slowly from Sherlock's shoulder, meeting the other man's assessing gaze. 

"Are you saying that you're sexually attracted to me?" John asked slowly. 

Sherlock's mouth twisted into a half smile as his brows drew down. Incredulity was obvious in his voice as he said, "I thought that was fairly obvious from the fact that I've been getting off listening to you wank." 

"Jesus," John said softly, and then he was pulling Sherlock forward into another kiss. The kiss was desperate and hungry, John pouring the last three weeks of sexual frustration into the slide of lips and tongues. He nipped at Sherlock's lower lip, enjoying the noise Sherlock made when he did so. He added several more nips just to listen to Sherlock making those frantic noises again. 

He tugged at Sherlock, encouraging him up onto the sofa. Sherlock ended up laying on top of him, their legs tangling as they kissed with increasing heat. John could feel Sherlock's hard prick against his thigh and he groaned into Sherlock's mouth when the other man shifted slightly, his hard prick drawing a line from John's thigh to his groin, slotting right next to John's own achingly hard prick. 

John turned his head to press a kiss against Sherlock's jaw before sliding his tongue down the side of his neck. Sherlock arched his head back, thrusting his prick against John's, and John huffed out a breath. 

"You enjoy listening to me coming from thinking about you, hmm?" John whispered, and Sherlock closed his eyes, shivering faintly before nodding. "Would you enjoy watching me come?" 

"Yes." The word was a bare whisper, Sherlock's eyes snapping open as he searched John's face, clearly wanting to be sure John meant it. 

John reached down between their bodies, fumbling with the button on his trousers. Sherlock pushed up onto hands and knees to make it easier for John and within seconds John had his hard cock out of both his trousers and pants, stroking it slowly as Sherlock stared at it with brazen desire on his face. 

John slid his hand up, thumb brushing over the head of his cock, smearing a drop of pre-cum around before he slid his hand down again, drawing the foreskin slightly back off his glans as he did so. Sherlock's mouth was barely open as he panted out quick, shaky breaths, staring with fascination at John's hand stroking his own cock. 

"I want to see you, too," John said, his voice unsteady. "I want to watch you come." 

Sherlock leaned back onto his heels, swiftly undoing both the button and zip on his trousers. He pulled his own hard cock from within, his eyes still locked on John's as he began to slide his hand up his own length, pausing at the top of his stroke to squeeze his foreskin tight over the head before he slowly slid his hand back down. 

John pushed himself up a bit more, leaning against the arm of the sofa so he could see Sherlock better, his knees open wide to prevent obscuring Sherlock's view of John's own cock. Sherlock resettled himself against the back of the sofa, legs hanging off the edge as he stroked himself. 

John couldn't believe this was happening. He and Sherlock were masturbating to the sight of each other masturbating. The sight of Sherlock's long, graceful hand wrapped around his cock was unbelievably delicious, though, and John could feel himself rapidly approaching orgasm. He shifted his grip, fingers twisting a little at the top of each stroke, hand moving faster as he pumped himself towards what he could already tell was going to be an absolutely mind-blowing orgasm. 

Sherlock was watching John's movements, mimicking them unconsciously. When John sped up, Sherlock sped up. When John concentrated on the very end of his cock with quick, short pumps, Sherlock did the same. 

John was nearly there when he heard Sherlock's voice, strained and desperate. "John, John, I'm... John!" 

And then Sherlock was coming, painting stripes over the leg of his trousers. The sight of Sherlock's head thrown back and John's name on his lips as he came sent John over the edge and his hand stuttered on his cock as he shuddered, gasping, "Oh, God, Sherlock, yes!" 

After several long, quiet minutes of panting breaths and post-orgasmic bliss, they both shifted on the sofa. John made a noise in the back of his throat as he saw his own cum streaked across the front of his jumper and he reached down to pull it off, dropping the soiled jumper on the floor next to the sofa. Sherlock raised an eyebrow and then shimmied his trousers off, dropping them next to John's jumper before crawling back onto John's body and laying his face against John's undershirt. His softening cock was against John's thigh again and John smiled, reaching down to thread his fingers through Sherlock's soft curls. 

"Next time," Sherlock murmured, his lips moving against John's chest, "I want to be the one to stroke you until you come." 

"Only if I get to do the same to you," John said, a smiling lifting his lips. 

"Agreed," Sherlock said, and they settled back in to their usual evening cuddles on the sofa. 


	7. If the Window is Over Your Heart // 25th January 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for remembered rape.

John followed Sherlock up the stairs to 221B, smiling. They were returning from a client's home triumphant, Sherlock having solved the mystery of their older, unmarried daughter's supposed suicide within moments of entering the home. He had texted Lestrade before he'd even begun talking to the family and examining the house.

When Lestrade had arrived, Sherlock had explained the entire murder in a proud tone while the elderly woman who had hired him - the mother of the victim - had stared in horror at her spouse, the one who had actually killed the woman. 

Sherlock had experienced a string of good days, the bottle of morphine going untouched where it rested on the coffee table in the sitting room. They had been easing their way into their new sexual relationship after watching each other masturbate four days before. 

John was somewhat surprised at how frequently Sherlock seemed willing to engage in sexual activities with him, especially since it had always seemed to John that Sherlock valued The Work over every physical desire his body presented him with. But since Tuesday evening, they had tried wanking each other followed the next evening by frotting. They'd taken a break the next night; Sherlock had gotten several human fingers from Molly Hooper, a pathology assistant at St. Bart's Hospital, and had been enthralled all evening in an experiment with them that took up the entire kitchen table and made the flat smell sickeningly of overcooked meat. 

John wondered what Saturday evening would bring, Sherlock riding high on the success of the case and practically vibrating with excitement. Hopefully, not more experiments with dismembered fingers and a Bunsen burner. 

Sherlock swept into the flat, sliding out of his Belstaff and scarf practically in one continuous movement before tossing them onto the coat rack and striding across the room, throwing himself into his black leather armchair with a exultant expression on his face. "Almost too easy, John," he called across the sitting room as John slid out of his own jacket a bit slower. 

"Only to someone as brilliant as you," John said, propping his hands on his hips and turning to smile fondly at Sherlock. "I definitely never would have noticed the berry stains on the man's trouser hems." 

Sherlock's cheeks pinked faintly at the praise and he raised his chin slightly. "It's just a matter of learning to pay more attention to your surroundings." 

"Something which comes naturally to you," John said, moving over to stand next to his own armchair. "Want me to put the kettle on?" 

"Not just now," Sherlock said. "Really, John, you're bright enough; you just need to take in more of what's around you. Look at me; what can you deduce about me?" 

John snorted out a laugh. "This is going to be embarrassing. It is every time you try to get me to do deductions." 

"You're getting better," Sherlock said. 

"You're lying," John said, pursing his lips. 

"See? Getting better already," Sherlock said, and John realized that there was a very faint smirk tugging at the corners of Sherlock's mouth. 

"Oh, you impossible bastard," John said, but his voice was fond. He leaned over Sherlock, placing his hands on the other man's shoulders as he leaned down to catch Sherlock's mouth in a soft kiss. Sherlock responded instantly, tipping his head back to give John easier access to his lips. The soft, fluttering kiss quickly deepened and John realized that this evening was probably not going to end with experiments on the kitchen table... unless, of course, they cleared off some of the rubbish to make room for their bodies. 

John slid one hand slowly down the front of Sherlock's button-up shirt, stopping with his palm resting lightly on Sherlock's half-hard prick within in trousers. "So, will we be taking care of this?" 

"Mmm," Sherlock rumbled softly, eyes half-lidded as he looked at John. "That idea has merit." 

John stroked his palm firmly against Sherlock's growing erection, leaning down to draw the tip of his tongue along Sherlock's sharp jawline until he could nibble his way up his earlobe. He could feel Sherlock's prick jump beneath his palm as he applied the barest edge of teeth along his ear and he filed the strong reaction away for future reference. 

Slowly, John began to unbutton the long row of buttons, taking the time to press a kiss to each new exposed bit of skin. He tugged the last bit of the button-up from Sherlock's trousers to undo the last two buttons and then gently shoved it halfway off Sherlock's shoulders. 

"Gorgeous," he whispered, smiling as he took in the expanse of bare skin. Sherlock made a soft noise, his expression as fond as John had ever seen it before. John paused, stroking his fingertips down the side of Sherlock's face until he reached the other man's mouth. He traced the cupid's bow of Sherlock's upper lip with his forefinger until Sherlock turned his head, pressing soft kisses against John's fingertips. 

John braced one knee on the cushion of Sherlock's chair, keeping his other shoe planted on the floor as he leaned forward to press his hands on the chairback next to Sherlock's shoulders and lowered his head, licking and kissing and nibbling down Sherlock's neck and across his broad shoulders. He dipped his tongue lightly into the hollow of Sherlock's throat before sliding his lips down to capture a nipple. Sherlock groaned heavily and John sucked hard at his nipple, delighting in the full-bodied moan that trembled out of the other man. 

"Oh, you like that, don't you?" John murmured against Sherlock's chest, smiling. 

He was completely unprepared for the horrified shout that met his words, Sherlock's hands coming up and shoving John hard, sending him stumbling back to land in his own armchair. For a second, John was furious and then he took in the expression on Sherlock's face: his eyes were wide and heavy with tears, his skin ashen, his lips open and trembling. 

"Sherlock? God, are you all right?" John pushed out of his armchair, moving cautiously towards the other man. 

"I'm sorry," Sherlock whispered, his voice harsh. "I'm sorry. You just... when they... violated me, that's what one of them said every time when he..." 

"Shit," John said, his voice almost too low to hear. "No, don't apologize. You don't have to apologize for reacting to what was done to you. Not to me. Not ever to me." 

"Are you hurt?" Sherlock asked, his voice still ragged. 

"No, I'm fine. You startled me, that's all." John hesitated, crouching down in front of Sherlock and resting one hand on the other man's knee. Sherlock twitched at the touch but didn't try to pull away. "Do you... want to talk about -" 

"No. Not ever," Sherlock said, his expression sharpening as he looked down at John. "If I could avoid thinking about it for the rest of my life... but sometimes I wake up and I can still feel fingers digging into my hips, like they're with me in the bed and I never actually got free." Sherlock's lips were trembling again and as John watched, a single tear slipped over the edge of his eyelid and slid down his cheek. "Sometimes I think they must still be there because I can hear them talking to me. One of the torturers particularly liked taking me after a session of torture. He said that the noises I made when he was beating me with metal piping went straight to his cock." 

John winced, hand tightening faintly against Sherlock's knee. 

"Sometimes, for laughs, he would gather my blood from the newest wounds to use as lube." 

" _Stop_. Jesus, stop. Please, stop," John begged, stomach turning. "I'm so sorry that they did that to you, but it's over now. They'll never touch you again." 

"I know they won't," Sherlock said, reaching up to wipe his tears away with the heels of his hands. "Mycroft had them all killed once he'd gotten me out." 

" _Good._ " John's voice was fierce. He did not feel any sympathy for the murders of Sherlock's torturers. His only regret was that he had not been able to be involved in the killing of them. 

"I'll try not to... do something like that again," Sherlock said, looking down at John with an apologetic expression. His lashes were still spiky from his tears and John's mouth twisted with a sudden wash of sorrow. 

"If I accidentally trigger a memory, I don't care if you shove me halfway across the bedroom. Don't just let the horror ride you. I'd rather I have a bloody lip than you suffer any more than necessary." John rose slowly, holding his arms down towards Sherlock. After a moment's hesitation, Sherlock pushed out of his armchair and wrapped his arms around John, pressing his cheek against the top of John's head. 

"My John," he murmured with obvious relief at John's understanding, his voice rumbling in his chest under John's ear, and John sighed softly, threading his fingers together behind Sherlock's back as he tightened his grip on the man he loved. 

"Always, Sherlock. Always." 


	8. Walk Through Your Dreams and Invent the Future // 1st February 2014

They'd been sharing Sherlock's bed every night for almost a week and a half when John was startled awake from a deep sleep by the sound of Sherlock screaming.

It took him a moment to know what was happening. In the blackness of the bedroom, he tried to throw himself away from the panicked sounds beside him and realized he was being held down. After struggling helplessly for a moment, he began to wake up and understood that his arms and legs were tangled in the sheets and that if Sherlock was screaming, he might need help. 

John carefully extracted his arms and legs and rolled to his right, fumbling at the switch for the lamp on his side of the bed. He squinted against the sudden brightness once he finally got it on and turned to look over at Sherlock. 

The dark-haired man was writhing on his side, his hands clenched in his own shirt, screaming as quickly as he could draw air. John was surprised he hadn't come out of the dream yet, considering how loud the screams were. 

John reached out cautiously, gripping Sherlock's shoulder and giving it a quick, rough shake before jerking his arm back. He'd had a few experiences with waking Sherlock from PTSD dreams in the last few months and he'd learned it was better to get to a minimum safe distance before the other man came awake. 

As usual, Sherlock came to swinging, his fists meeting John's pillow as John rolled off the bed and to his feet, ready to back away if Sherlock followed after him. But Sherlock stopped, his body half turned and his hands planted in John's pillow. His head was hanging limply and John could hear the tortured wheezing of Sherlock's breath through his open mouth. 

"He was cutting my hand," Sherlock finally said, speaking down towards the bed. "It was like it was happening again. I could feel the pain as he sliced through the skin and then sheared through the bone. He caught my pinky before it hit the ground, laughing as he held it up for me to look at and -" Sherlock broke off, gagging, and John barely had time to dodge towards the foot of the bed before Sherlock plunged past him, slamming through the washroom door. John heard Sherlock retching, groaning once the wave of nausea had passed, and headed towards the washroom to join the other man. 

Sherlock was clinging to the toilet bowl, shaking slightly. John stepped up cautiously behind him, resting a hand on Sherlock's back. As soon as he felt John's touch, Sherlock spun, grabbing fistfuls of John's pyjama bottoms and pressing his face into John's hip. John reached down, stroking his fingers through Sherlock's hair slowly, smoothing the wild, ruffled mess that his nightmare had left behind. 

"Why do you stay, John?" Sherlock asked after a long silence, his mouth moving against John's hip bone as he pressed his forehead firmly against John's lower abdomen. "Why do you stay?" 

"When you have nightmares, you mean?" 

"Not just when I have nightmares. Why do you stay when I act like a complete arsehole? Why do you stay when I don't speak for days? Why do you stay when I fall to useless, weeping pieces during foreplay? Why do you stay when you could be out there with anyone else?" 

"Because I don't want anyone else," John said, completely honestly. "You might make me crazy sometimes, but that doesn't change the way I feel about you. I've spent four years in a kind of hopeless obsession with you, wishing you were able to feel something for me. The fact that you obviously can feel something for me is amazing, even if it isn't the sort of romance that I'm used to. Why would I want to walk away from it? Because sometimes you're frustrating? Everyone is frustrating. Because sometimes you're rude? Everyone is rude. Don't make yourself out to be an unrepentant bastard; I know it's not true. You're difficult but you're also brilliant and gorgeous and fascinating." 

"I thought for such a long time you weren't interested in me," Sherlock said, lifting his head from John's abdomen to meet his eyes. "Once I finally realized that I valued you above even The Work, I thought it was a given that you were yet another thing I was going to always want and never have." 

"Another thing?" 

"I'm just an addict, after all," Sherlock said softly, pressing his forehead against John's abdomen again, sighing. 

John combed his fingers through Sherlock's hair, not knowing what to say to that. He'd heard that it could take years for the cravings for drugs to fully leave someone's body and that some people never really stopped craving the substances to which they'd once been slaves. Sherlock saying he was still an addict was, therefore, accurate. But, John wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel, being compared to addictive drugs. 

"Do you want to go back to bed?" he finally asked, still drawing his fingers through Sherlock's curls. 

"I won't sleep," Sherlock said, shivering slightly against John's leg. 

"Yeah, I didn't think you'd want to," John said. "I was suggesting we go back to bed just for you to be held." 

Sherlock seemed to consider the offer for a moment before pushing to his feet, keeping his body close to John's to take comfort from the warmth of the other man. They walked back into the bedroom together, John's arm around Sherlock's waist to guide him. 

John let Sherlock slide across the bed before he climbed in after the other man. He settled himself comfortably, propping his pillow up against the headboard a bit to give him a comfortable surface against which to lean his upper back and neck. As soon as he'd gotten himself comfortably settled, Sherlock was curling against him, moving his head to John's stomach and wrapping his arm across John's hip, his knees pressing into John's calf. John resumed stroking Sherlock's hair, smiling fondly down at the other man. 

Sherlock's mangled hand rested just next to John's hip on the bed, and John glanced down at it. It was trembling faintly. 

"Does your hand hurt?" he asked, reaching down to brush his fingertips along the length of Sherlock's left index finger. As he always did when John paid attention to his hand, Sherlock curled it into a fist, tucking it firmly into the bed to hide the twisting scar that ran from the outside of his middle finger down to just above the heel of his hand. 

"It's manageable. Unpleasant, especially after the dream... but manageable. The bad days are coming more frequently, though. I'm noticing the pain more often." 

"We'll figure something out," John promised softly, sliding his hand to rest it on top of Sherlock's curled fist. Sherlock didn't pull away and John left his hand there, staring down at the back of Sherlock's head where it was laying on his stomach. 

After a moment, John began speaking softly, telling Sherlock a story about an order of Nitrile gloves at the clinic that had been mispacked and had required they order it twice more before the delivery company managed to get the right package to them. The story itself wasn't very interesting, but John wasn't speaking to entertain Sherlock; he'd noticed on nights when Sherlock's nightmares tore him from sleep that John talking about the mundane - his job at the clinic, doing the shopping, stories he'd read in the newspaper - would sometimes literally bore Sherlock to sleep. He knew Sherlock tended to filter out witless babble into a softer background noise, and he counted on that particular trait on nights like this. Sherlock would turn his words into nothing and would hear only the sound of John's voice and feel the warmth of John's body and the lightness of John's fingers tugging through his curls. 

Fifteen minutes later, John was unsurprised to hear a soft, muted snore from Sherlock, his head still pillowed on John's stomach. John shifted very carefully until he was no longer leaning against the headboard. His head resting on his pillow, John turned away from the still burning lamp and let himself drift back into a light doze, his hand resting on Sherlock's head. 


	9. Inside Your Head the Sound of Glass // 18th February 2014

"Not today, Greg," John said, his voice low as he spoke into the mobile. He turned away from the kitchen table, looking back into the sitting room. "He can't today. Sorry."

He rang off and stuffed the mobile into the pocket of his trousers, moving across the sitting room to stand next to Sherlock. The other man was splayed bonelessly in his black leather armchair, his expression vague when he turned slowly to look up at John. 

"How many have you taken this time, Sherlock?" he asked, his voice tight as he fought with both anger and panic. 

It took Sherlock a minute to process the question. He rolled his head slowly from side to side against the back of the chair, not quite shaking his head although it had obviously been his intention. "One isn't doing it," he said, his words slurred. "I was still feeling pain with one." 

"You've explained that to me before," John said, trying to sound patient as he stepped close, peering at Sherlock's eyes. His pupils were narrowed to pinpricks and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. "I just need to know how many you've taken this time." 

"Three." 

John's jaw tightened to the point of pain and he turned away from Sherlock slowly. His voice was sharp when he spoke. "Sherlock, you're meant to take one tablet every twelve hours." 

"It wasn't working anymore," Sherlock said, the words slow as they scraped their way out of him. "I was still feeling pain. And then last week, two weren't working anymore. So I'm trying three." 

" _Three_ ," John repeated, the word almost a scoff. 

"I'm not in pain," Sherlock said. 

"I can't do this," John snapped, pacing across the sitting room to the sofa and then back to Sherlock's armchair again. "You're going to kill yourself, you idiot. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to take three of those at a time?" 

"Two wasn't working anymore -" 

"Stop!" John said, anger finally overwhelming him. "I can't talk to you right now. I need air. I'm going out. I'll come back to check on you as soon as I... as soon as I can do it without wanting to punch you." 

John strode over to the sitting room door, jerking it open. He could hear Sherlock saying his name, the word slurred and slow, but he didn't stop or turn back towards the other man, slamming the sitting room door behind him as he threw himself down the stairs and out onto the street. 

It wasn't until the icy February air hit him that he realized he'd left his jacket upstairs. He hesitated for a moment on the pavement and then took off at a brisk walk. He'd duck into a cafe or something once he got cold enough that his anger was no longer all he could feel. 

He'd been walking for almost ten minutes when he stopped to hail a cab. He didn't want to go to a cafe, to be stuck with food he didn't really want to eat and nothing to distract him from his thoughts. He would go to the clinic and research the steps he could take to help Sherlock, whether that meant getting him off morphine or researching surgeons to take care of the possibly entangled nerves in his hand. 

The first three cabs to pass by, though, were occupied. John was beginning to shiver in the chill February air when his mobile rang in his pocket. He fumbled it out, his fingers stiffening a little in the cold, and felt a touch of surprise to see the person calling was Mycroft, Sherlock's powerful and seemingly omniscient older brother. 

"Mycroft?" John said in lieu of a greeting. "It's been awhile since I've heard from you." 

"Dr. Watson, imagine my surprise when I did a search on my brother's recent prescription history and found that you had been prescribing him opiates." 

John bristled at Mycroft's tone. "No, I don't want to hear this from you. You left Sherlock in agonizing pain after he'd been _tortured_. You were meant to look after him while he was hunting down Moriarty's network, weren't you? Why the hell did you allow him to be tortured?" 

" _Allow_ it, Dr. Watson? I did not _allow_ it to happen. I lost track of him when he was captured in Serbia. I spent a week trying to find him only to discover he'd been captured by a rebel group and was being tortured for information. It took me almost a month to work my way into their group. I had to move slowly to insure that I wasn't found out. It wasn't an American Western; I couldn't burst in with guns blazing and pull my brother from their shackles." 

"But you knew what had been done to him and you left him to deal with it on his own," John said, refusing to be quelled. 

"No, he did not _want_ my help. He didn't want to see either a physician for his injuries or a psychiatrist for his obvious PTSD. He pushed away all my offers of assistance and chose to seek you out immediately." 

John pressed a hand to his eyes, brow furrowing. "Mycroft, I've spent the last four months trying everything I could think of to help him." 

"And you finally decided that prescribing morphine to a heroin addict was the right path? Are you aware how similar the two chemicals are?" 

John swallowed thickly, stunned into silence. He had not known that Sherlock's drug of choice had been heroin. He hadn't wanted to ask. Now, though, he realized how incredibly foolish that had been. When John spoke, his voice was soft and shamed. "Yeah, I know how similar they are." 

"We need to have a talk, I think. I'm sending a car to pick you up." 

"I'm not at Baker Street," John said. 

"I can see that," Mycroft replied, his tone dry. "Stay there. It shouldn't be more than ten minutes." 

The line clicked and John slowly lowered the phone. Good God, he'd given Sherlock almost an exact duplicate of the substance he'd been addicted to. He'd known Sherlock had once been a drug addict, but it was a topic that they'd never really sat down to have a natter over. 

He should have checked. He should have asked Mycroft or even Sherlock himself before he'd offered the prescription for morphine. What sort of friend was he that he had simply pulled out the prescription pad without stopping to verify that Sherlock's drug addiction hadn't been something like cocaine or meth? 

John shivered, shoving his hands into his trouser pockets. He was freezing, but he didn't even bother stepping back towards the shops behind him to get out of the wind; he felt like he deserved to stand shivering on the kerb. 

When the sleek black Jaguar pulled up in front of him a few minutes later, he climbed in without comment. Not-Anthea, the dark-haired woman who often assisted Mycroft in the pickup and delivery of the people he wanted to chat with, was sitting in the backseat. Her mobile was out, of course, and she was staring at it with fixed concentration. John didn't even bother saying hello. He settled into his seat, staring fixedly at his own hands as he clenched and unclenched them on his lap. Not-Anthea kept the silence, as uninterested in conversation as she always was. 

John was somehow unsurprised when the car pulled up in front of the Diogenes Club, the exclusive gentleman's club that Mycroft favored for its strict rules of 'absolutely no talking to one another except in the Strangers Room.' 

John headed straight to the Strangers Room as soon as he had stepped into the oppressive silence of the building, knowing that it was the only place in the club where he and Mycroft could speak to one another and was therefore the most likely place Mycroft would be waiting for him. 

Mycroft was seated in the richly appointed room with a tumbler of whiskey on the dark wood desk in front of him. It looked as if he'd just been staring at it since he'd poured it and when John walked in, he glanced up with an exhausted expression. 

"Dr. Watson. Would you like a drink?" 

"No," John said, coming to a stop just behind the chairs facing the desk, clasping his hands behind his back as he stared Mycroft down. "You wanted to talk about Sherlock; let's talk about Sherlock." 

"He used heroin for nearly five years, Dr. Watson," Mycroft said, lifting his glass and swirling the dark liquid within. "He managed fairly well, at first. Even I wasn't sure that he was abusing drugs. Of course, I _suspected_ a chemical dependency, but he was careful enough that I could not verify it. His consulting detective business was in its early stages at that point, and I think the boredom was more than he could tolerate. But, after a year, he began needing larger amounts of heroin to get his high and the money from the few cases he managed to bring in was no longer sufficient to meet his needs. He began coming to me for money. At first, I was happy to help him." 

"Happy?" John repeated, surprised. 

"He's my brother; of course, I wanted to see him well-looked after. But, that was also when I began keeping a closer watch on his activities. It still took me well over a year to finally find proof of what he was doing. Once I had confirmation of his addiction, I confronted him with my knowledge." Mycroft made a face, bringing his glass up and draining it in one long swallow. "We fought. He stopped taking money from me after that and began prostituting himself to afford his habit." 

"Jesus," John whispered, eyes going wide. 

"He was extremely lucky he did not contract any diseases during the six months that were his lowest point -" 

"You left him for _six months_ to have sex with strangers and shoot up with dirty needles?" John asked, rage filling him as he stared down at the imperious man sitting at the desk across the room from him. 

"He vanished for six months," Mycroft said. "I pulled in more favors than I can count while trying to track him down. If he hadn't decided to come to me, I imagine I may have spent the rest of my life not knowing whether my brother had lived or died." 

"So, he came to you, and then what? Rehab?" 

"At first, he tried to just give up the drugs, claiming it would be an interesting experiment. After 36 hours, I found him in one of his favorite drug dens, as high as I had ever seen him. He agreed to try rehab after that, and spent six weeks making everyone in the clinic absolutely miserable. But, he was able to beat his addiction and returned to his life. It was around that time that he was able to solve a high profile case on which Detective Inspector Lestrade had been leading the investigation, and the DI began seeking Sherlock's input on other cases. It offered him enough of a distraction to keep him from falling back into the habit of heroin, although I stayed watchful. And then, you arrived two years later and gave him something to _truly_ focus on - thank you for that, by the way." 

"And now I've gone and made a real cock up of the situation by handing him a prescription to opiates," John said, resting his hands on the back of the armchair in front of him and leaning into them heavily. 

"Yes, you have, haven't you?" Mycroft said, a thin, humorless smile stretching over his face. 

"I did it because he was in pain," John snapped, fingers clenching on the chair back. "And I only prescribed the morphine because nothing else had helped him. If you'd sat on the floor of the washroom, holding him while he shook and sweated... if you'd had to support him after a fit of vomiting so intense that he nearly fell into the toilet when it was over..." 

Mycroft's face was sympathetic and he pursed his lips as he stared at John. Finally, he sighed. "What is the prescription dosage you have him on?" 

"The tablets are 60mg and he's taking them twice a day." 

"And how many tablets is he taking at a time?" Mycroft asked, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk. 

"Three." 

"He will exhaust his current prescription rapidly," Mycroft said. "I suggest you be aware of the signs of withdrawal and be prepared to move quickly should he begin exhibiting them. His most logical choice, when the discomfort of withdrawal and the pain in his hand become an overwhelming problem, would be to return to his heroin habit." 

John swallowed thickly, a heavy pressure descending on his chest. 

"He might try to sneak away, should he plan to seek out one of his old dealers. I don't suppose I need to impress on you how important it is that you be aware of his movements." 

"Right," John said, his voice tight. 

"Dr. Watson... you cannot _make_ Sherlock go to rehab unless he wants to go to rehab. And until his life has spiraled completely out of control, he will not want to go to rehab." Mycroft caught John's eyes with his own, his face full of sorrow. "He will have to hit rock bottom again before he can climb his way back up. Are you prepared to watch that happen?" 

John's mouth was suddenly dry and he stared at Mycroft, realizing the sequence of events he had set off. Finally, he nodded his head, not trusting his voice. 

"I hope so," Mycroft said, looking away. "It will not be easy for you." 


	10. The Repeated Image of the Lover Destroyed // 4th March 2014

On the good days, Sherlock still took cases and John still chased after him, amazed by his brilliant mind and his quick deductions. On the good days, they curled up together in bed and Sherlock was absolutely insatiable, memorizing every inch of John's body with tiny licks and trailing fingertips. On the good days, John felt himself falling deeper into love with Sherlock, the other man racing to the center of his heart as if to prise out every mystery inside of John Watson.

But the good days were coming farther and farther apart. 

John noticed that Sherlock had begun taking morphine nearly every day, catching Sherlock sliding the pills into his mouth when he thought John was otherwise occupied. And on the days when the pain in his hand tried to overwhelm him, Sherlock wouldn't even try to hide it as he tossed three pills into his mouth, his face tight and harsh and his ruined hand held pressed to his chest until the medication finally kicked in and he was able to relax, boneless and blank as he splayed out in his armchair. 

It was no surprise to John when Sherlock came to him one morning when John was in the process of getting dressed for the day. He held the empty bottle of morphine tablets in his hand, thrusting it out towards John where the shorter man stood beside the dresser, getting out clean pants. "I'll need a new prescription; I took the last pill around 3am so the sooner we can fill it, the better. Write it for my increased dosage to prevent me running out so quickly next time." 

"No," John said, drawing himself up as he stared at Sherlock. He was still in his pyjama bottoms and an undershirt while Sherlock was dressed for the day, his button-up crisp and his trousers perfectly pressed. John felt shabby next to him, but he wasn't going to let his own feelings of inadequacy stop him from holding his ground. Not on this. 

Sherlock blinked, lowering the empty bottle to his side. John could almost see his fantastic brain working through the problem, his eyes ticking across John's face and taking in the determination in John's eyes, the lowered brows, the set of his mouth. 

"I see," Sherlock said, tossing the plastic bottle away. It clattered across the bedroom floor before rolling underneath the wardrobe. "The next few days will be very unpleasant for us both, then. Have you ever seen someone suffering through opiate withdrawal?" 

"Not personally, no," John admitted. 

"The first symptoms will probably begin within the next seven hours. Think of how I act when I'm in need of a case: the agitation and anxiety will be similar, although perhaps more intense. I will also begin experiencing muscle aches, sweating, nausea, and inability to sleep. I will probably have panic attacks, which will not be helped by the PTSD. And it is quite likely the pain in my hand will return at some point within the next few days." Sherlock gave John a humorless smile, spreading his arms wide. "It's Tuesday, so the worst of the symptoms should pass by Monday. I will continue to have lingering desires for the morphine, but it won't be anything I haven't experienced before." 

John was impressed with how well Sherlock seemed to be handling it. From Mycroft's story, he had almost expected a tantrum when he had refused to refill the prescription. He relaxed, reaching a hand towards Sherlock. There was no hesitation as Sherlock responded, twining his fingers with John's and stepping closer to the shorter man to nuzzle his nose into John's hair, something he had taken to doing more and more often over the last month. 

"Sherlock, have you considered that you might have scar tissue entangling a nerve in your hand? Surgery could help with your pain considerably -" 

"I'm already looking at a week of increased pain and bodily discomfort, John; I don't really want to talk about the possibility of surgery afterwards to try and fix what was done to my hand. Not right now, anyway." 

"No, of course not," John said, instantly contrite. He pressed a hesitant kiss against Sherlock's collarbone, rewarded by Sherlock's soft rumble of pleasure. 

"We have at least another six and a half hours before I'll begin to experience the first withdrawal symptoms; would you like to spend them doing something pleasurable?" Sherlock's lips were moving against John's hair as he nuzzled gently against the top of the shorter man's head, his free hand coming up to stroke slowly down John's lower back to brush against the top of his bottoms. When Sherlock's long fingers slid just slightly into the back of John's pyjama bottoms, John felt a small smile tugging at his lips. 

"Very much so," John said, reaching back and shutting the dresser drawer before stepping forward, pressing his body flush to Sherlock's. 

"May I take the lead this time?" Sherlock asked, gently tugging his hand from John's to stroke his knuckles down the side of John's face. 

"All right," John said, his voice gentle as he leaned his head into the caress. "Whatever you want." 

Sherlock turned John and gave him a gentle nudge, encouraging him to the edge of the bed. John sat when Sherlock pressed lightly on his shoulder, surprised by how forceful Sherlock was being. Normally, it was John who led the way in their sexual experiences. In fact, he didn't think that Sherlock had initiated sex before this. 

_'He's getting more comfortable with me,'_ John thought, warmth spreading through his chest. 

Sherlock carefully slotted himself between John's thighs, reaching up to run his hands slowly through John's short salt-and-wheat hair, tipping John's head up towards him. Sherlock lowered himself, lips brushing over John's briefly before they slid down his bared throat and across the front of his undershirt as Sherlock sank to his knees on the floor. Sherlock raised his hands to slide them slowly down the sides of John's body, long fingers stroking so softly that it almost tickled. John writhed a bit as he felt the slow bump-bump-bump of Sherlock's fingertips over his ribs. 

Sherlock's hands stopped when they reached the jut of John's hipbones and then his hands reversed their path, sliding underneath John's undershirt and raising it up, exposing his skin slowly. Sherlock leaned forward, lips tracing over John's belly and sternum, moving up as the shirt was slowly drawn over John's head and dropped negligently on the bed. 

Sherlock's arms slid behind John, holding the other man to him as his lips teased and tasted at John's nipples. John sighed softly, his head rolling back as sensation flooded over him. He could feel his hard prick pressing against Sherlock's chest where it rested in John's lap. Sherlock nails skidded lightly down John's back at the same time that Sherlock applied the barest edge of teeth to John's nipple. John bucked slightly, blowing out a sharp breath. 

Sherlock's eyes ticked up to John's face, taking in the expression. A faint smile crinkled the corners of Sherlock's eyes before he turned back to what he was doing, drawing the tip of his tongue slowly from John's chest all the way down to the elastic top of his pyjama bottoms. 

Sherlock's mouth closed over the bulge in John's pyjama bottoms, the heat of the inside of Sherlock's mouth translating easily through the single thin layer of cotton, and John groaned helplessly, his hands gripping the duvet beneath him. Sherlock's tongue laved at him through the cotton pyjama bottoms, the warmth and gentle friction making John's hips roll against the mattress as he whispered Sherlock's name. At the sound of John's voice, Sherlock lifted his head, assessing John's face. He obviously liked what he was seeing, because he tugged gently at the elastic waistband of the pyjama bottoms and John braced his hands on the bed, lifting his hips up so Sherlock could slowly pull them down, leaving John naked before the still-fully-clothed Sherlock. 

John's body tightened in anticipation as Sherlock leaned forward, but he was moving past John's hard prick, using his hands to press John's thighs open wider. Sherlock applied several long, slow licks to the soft skin where John's thigh joined his groin before going lower, the tip of his tongue tickling slowly across John's testicles before he began licking the crook of John's other thigh. 

Just when John was ready to start begging, Sherlock turned his head slightly and drew his tongue all the way from the base to the tip of John's cock in one long, continuous, hard lick that pressed John's cock against his own stomach. John's breath exploded out in delighted surprise, but he didn't get a chance to adjust to Sherlock's lick because Sherlock was taking the head of John's cock into his mouth, tongue swirling around before dipping past the foreskin to press gently into the slit at the very tip, licking away the drops of pre-cum that were leaking out. 

Sherlock sucked gently, a long and continuous suction that had John writhing before Sherlock pulled away, twisting his head to tongue and kiss his way down the shaft, pausing at the base to once again draw the tip of his tongue over John's testicles. 

And then he was licking his way back up the shaft in another continuous lick, taking the head into his mouth once more. This time, though, he sucked his way down John's cock rather than focusing at the head, bobbing lower and lower with each suck. He made his way as far down as he could, the head of John's cock pressed against the back of his throat. John could feel the muscles in Sherlock's throat jumping against the head of his cock before Sherlock began to slowly draw himself back up and off, his tongue swirling around and around John's shaft as he went. And then he was sucking his way back down again, repeating the same move. 

Sherlock repeated the slow, sucking descent and tongue-swirling ascent three more times until John was moaning breathlessly, hands jerking at the duvet each time the head of his cock hit the back of Sherlock's throat. 

Sherlock slid his eyes up to John's face, taking in the other man's expression, and then he switched tactics, one hand wrapping around the base of John's cock just below where Sherlock's lips were wrapped. He began to bob his head, sucking each time he moved up. His hand was pumping John's cock in time with the bobbing suction and John released the duvet to bury both his hands in Sherlock's curls, gripping tight. 

"Oh, Jesus," John whispered, his head falling back as the sensation overwhelmed him temporarily. "Sherlock, God." 

In only a few minutes, John could feel the warmth pooling in his lower belly, the first indication of his impending orgasm. Sherlock was keeping up his pace, building John towards his release. 

With a quick moan, John began thrusting himself into Sherlock's mouth. As soon as his hips rose, though, Sherlock's free hand was pressing him back down and holding him. Sherlock slowed, his hand stilling on John's cock as he began to swirl his tongue around the head, pressing soft kisses to the hot skin. 

John hissed in a breath. Sherlock was keeping him from orgasm. Obviously, the blow job would be over when Sherlock decided it was over. 

After a few minutes of slow licks and kisses, John could feel himself backing off from the building orgasm. Sherlock's eyes were on his face, taking everything in. As soon as he saw that John was no longer right on the edge, he sucked his way back down John's cock and resumed the matched rhythm of hand and mouth. 

It was a little like torture, John thought, being brought to a knife's edge and then held back from going over. He stroked his hands through Sherlock's curls, tipping his head down to watch his cock sliding in and out of Sherlock's mouth. The visual was so incredibly hot that John felt his orgasm building back up rapidly. 

"Sherlock, please," he said, his voice ragged. Sherlock's eyes slid up again, staring at John's pleading expression, and he seemed satisfied with what he saw because he began to speed up, driving John quickly towards the teetering edge of orgasm. 

Sherlock swirled his tongue around the head of John's cock and gave another long suck, his hand still pumping, and John was coming, his fingers gripping Sherlock's curls as he threw back his head, Sherlock's name coming out in a breathless shout. He could feel Sherlock's tongue working as he swallowed and it sent a shiver through John's body. 

When the orgasm finally slid to nothingness, John collapsed bonelessly back onto the bed, breathing hard. "My God, that was fantastic. That was _fantastic_ ," he said, the words broken up by his panting breaths. Sherlock was still on his knees between John's legs, his hands resting open and soft on John's thighs as he smiled faintly, his eyes meeting John's across the length of John's body. "That was quite easily the best blowjob I've ever had, Sherlock." 

"Well, I've had practice," Sherlock said, his hands rubbing very lightly on John's thighs, tickling across the hair. 

John was opening his mouth, a laugh ready to come out, when he realized that Sherlock wasn't joking. He _had_ actually had practice. Hadn't Mycroft said just two weeks before that Sherlock had prostituted himself out to continue his drugs habit when he didn't have money? 

The mood in the room dropped so quickly and noticeably that John heard Sherlock's soft intake of breath and then Sherlock's hands were sliding off his thighs as the other man slowly stood. 

John pushed himself up, reaching out to grab both of Sherlock's hands to stop the other man from leaving. Sherlock hissed in a pained breath and John released Sherlock's mangled hand, cringing. "Sorry. God, Sherlock, I'm sorry. I didn't mean -" 

"Don't," Sherlock said, pulling his left hand to his chest. His face was tight with pain and John felt a stab in his gut as he realized that he couldn't even offer to get one of Sherlock's morphine tablets to help with the influx of pain his own fumbling had caused. "The pain will pass, John." 

"Right," John said, still holding weakly to Sherlock's right hand. 

"I knew you had been to see Mycroft a few weeks ago. I suppose, from your reaction just now, he told you about my sordid past?" 

"The drugs and the... what you did to get the drugs when the money ran out," John confirmed. 

"Sucking cocks," Sherlock said, the words sharp. "I learned how to be the best because mind-shattering orgasms would sometimes inspire the dealer to be generous and give me a little extra." 

John felt a wave of nausea sweep through him. Yeah, that had been a mind-shattering orgasm, all right. Too bad he didn't have anything to reward Sherlock with beyond his thanks. 

The bottom dropped out of John's stomach and he released Sherlock's hand, bringing a fist up to his mouth as horror swept through him. His eyes slid to Sherlock's face, praying that he wouldn't see what he was afraid he would see. 

Remorse. Apology. Sorrow. 

John pulled his fist back from his mouth, fighting against the tightness in his throat to speak. "Did you... just suck me off to get me to write you a new prescription?" 

The words fell like heavy stones, each one shattering the stillness in their bedroom as John forced them out. 

"It was on my mind when I first started," Sherlock said, and his voice was very low and quiet. John had to strain to hear him. "But once I saw how much you were enjoying it, it didn't matter to me anymore. I just wanted to... see you happy." 

"God, stop," John said, turning his face away. He couldn't look at Sherlock. He was torn between wanting to cry and wanting to punch the other man, and if he looked at Sherlock he wouldn't be able to stop himself from doing one or the other. "Just stop talking." 

"I'm sorry, John. I didn't -" 

" _Stop!_ " John shouted, rising from the bed and stepping towards Sherlock, fury on every inch of his face. Sherlock flinched slightly but did not back away, facing the deserved fury stoically. "You just sucked me off because you wanted me to give you _drugs_ , Sherlock. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?" 

"No, John, I don't," Sherlock snapped, eyes narrowing. "All I can think of right now is the half-life of the morphine in my body, and how with every hour and a half that ticks by, there is less and less of it numbing the pain. Knowing that you could stop it from happening but are choosing not to -" 

"Because you're a bloody _drug addict!_ I made a mistake giving you that prescription in the first place. If I'd known that your drug of choice was heroin, I never would've given you morphine!" 

"And why _didn't_ you know?" Sherlock asked savagely, thrusting his face down towards John's, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a furious snarl. "You never asked because talking about my past embarrasses you. Knowing what I did and what I will almost certainly do again is too hard for you to take. Imagine what it's like to have lived it, John, and to know that you're going to be driven back to it again because you allowed yourself to be captured and tortured for months. And then to know the one person who's meant to care for you more than anyone else can't even face it because you disgust them anytime they think about it." 

"Don't you dare try to turn this around on me," John said, bending down to snatch his pyjama bottoms off the floor, shoving his legs in and jerking them up angrily. "This is not about me." 

"John, _everything_ is about you. The pain, as debilitating as it is, would have been a tolerable distraction had it not also caused _you_ to suffer. I would have been able to say no to the morphine if I had known that I could just lock myself away when the pain became unbearable. But you were always there, watching me and trying to make it better and berating yourself when you _couldn't_ make it better. When you handed me the prescription for morphine, I could have torn it up if not for the look on your face, the blind hope that maybe it would stop the pain and bring back the Sherlock you knew before." 

John's mouth was hanging open, waves of shock and horror rippling through him in turns as he stared at Sherlock. After a moment, he whispered, "Then... stop. Just stop the drugs." 

"It's so easy to say it, isn't it, John? Have you ever been addicted to opiates? Do you know what it feels like when you haven't had a hit in awhile? Everything bleeds to grey and your own mind feels like it's full of emptiness. You're heavy with the pointlessness of everything and every _second_ that you're alive feels like hours of slow torture. And that feeling just goes on and on until your next hit, your next high." 

"Rehab," John said, his voice week. "We can take you to rehab." 

"I'm not going to rehab, John." 

"Are you going to go through withdrawal here at the flat, then? Suffer through the pain and the... the emptiness and pointlessness?" 

Sherlock stared at him, silent and furious before he turned and strode from the bedroom, slamming the door behind him as he went. John pinched his lips and followed after him, flinging the bedroom door open with such force that it bounced off the wall. 

"Sherlock!" he shouted, but he received no answer. As he stalked through the kitchen, though, he heard the front door downstairs slam. He broke into a jog, noticing that Sherlock's Belstaff and scarf were gone from the coat rack. Swearing, he ran to the sitting room window, thrusting the sheer curtain aside to look down at Baker Street, taking note of which direction Sherlock was going. 

John ran back to the bedroom, throwing clothes on as quickly as he could manage, each second beating against him with increasing force as he imagined Sherlock walking away and disappearing. 

He raced for the sitting room door, tearing his jacket off the coat rack with such force that it toppled to the floor behind him. He was down the stairs and out the front door in seconds, racing down Baker Street in the direction he'd seen Sherlock going. Once he reached the corner, he stopped, scanning up and down the side streets fruitlessly as the sickening realization weighed down on him: Sherlock was gone. 


	11. Left You Bruised and Ruined // 6th March 2014

After Sherlock left, John sat in his armchair in the flat, staring across at Sherlock's empty armchair steadily. His mobile rested on the small side table next to his chair, the volume turned all the way up just in case Sherlock phoned or texted. Every so often, John would pick the mobile up to glance at the time, counting down the hours. Sherlock had said that the morphine would fully wear off by 4pm. If he intended to try and beat his addiction, John expected him to return by then.

At 8pm, John let himself cry. Just for a few minutes, just long enough to take the edge off the growing well of misery in him. He leaned forward onto his knees, forearms on his thighs, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes as sobs ripped their way out of him. He could see no part of this where at least some of the blame did not rest squarely on his shoulders, and it was killing him. 

At 10pm, John phoned Mycroft to tell him that his brother was missing and almost certainly shooting up somewhere. 

The silence after his confession was harsh and full of unspoken judgment. There was more said in ten seconds of silence than Mycroft could have conveyed in ten minutes of words. When he finally did speak, his voice was clipped and cold. "I will have people looking for him, but if Sherlock does not wish to be found, he will not be." 

"I'll stay at the flat," John said. "I'll be here if he comes back." 

But it was a full 48 hours later before Sherlock returned. John had been sitting at the kitchen table and trying to eat breakfast while mainly only managing to stare morosely at the empty Petri dishes, beakers, and test tubes. How long had it been since he'd seen Sherlock dabbling in here? How many weeks? Why hadn't he been paying attention to how far Sherlock had been slipping away from the interests that had always been intrinsic to him? 

When he heard the sitting room door open, he knew it had to be Sherlock; anyone else would have knocked. He scraped his chair back across the floor, pushing away from the table and rushing to the doorway between the kitchen and sitting room. 

Sherlock was in the same clothes he'd been wearing when he'd stormed from the flat, although they were considerably more dirty and wrinkled. Even his Belstaff had a few smears of what looked like dried mud on it. His expression was tight as he turned to meet John's eyes; he looked as if he were waiting to be scolded. 

John moved across the sitting room in several long strides, slamming into Sherlock with force as he wrapped his arms around the other man, squeezing tightly enough that Sherlock groaned. 

"You bloody mad idiot," John said, his throat tight with unshed tears. "Don't you _ever_ do that again, disappearing like that. I didn't know if you were alive or if you'd... I didn't _know_." 

"I'm... sorry," Sherlock said, his voice hesitant. And then his arms were coming up to wrap around John's back, his touch tentative. John squeezed him again and Sherlock's arms tightened as he bent his head, resting his cheek on top of John's head. "I'm sorry, John. For so many things." 

John took a quick breath to reply but grimaced, pulling back. "You need a bath. We can talk after." 

Sherlock glanced down at himself and pulled a face. He took off his scarf and Belstaff, hanging them carefully on the coat rack. "Of course. I'll be just a minute." 

John stayed standing by the sitting room door, watching as Sherlock made his way through the kitchen and down the hall. He shut the washroom door behind himself and John sagged, leaning against the sitting room door heavily. He pulled out his mobile, dialing. 

"Yes?" Mycroft's voice had a note of hope in it, and John couldn't blame him; the last two days had to've been almost as hellish for him as they'd been for John. 

"He's back. He's here. He's in the bath now." 

"I'll be there shortly," Mycroft said. 

"Don't. I think... I think maybe I should talk to him rather than you." 

There was a long pause before Mycroft spoke. "As you like. You will, of course, let me know if there's anything I can do to help?" 

"Of course," John agreed readily. "I may even change my mind and ring you back after I've talked to him." 

"I will be available at a moment's notice," Mycroft promised, and they hung up. 

When Sherlock walked out of the bedroom ten minutes later, he was dressed in a clean button-up and trousers, his hair still damp from his bath. John had settled himself back at the kitchen table after cleaning up his mostly uneaten breakfast, and when the bedroom door opened, he rose to stare down the hall. 

"You look better," John said, trying to smile. Sherlock was fussing with one of the shirt cuffs, giving it little finicky twists to make it sit right, but he glanced up at John's voice. 

"I'm feeling better," he said, and there was something in the lazy slide of his voice that made John's jaw tighten. He hesitated for only a moment before striding through the kitchen and down the hall, grabbing the wrist of Sherlock's left arm, the same one he'd been fussing with the cuff on moments before. He undid the button before Sherlock could react, jerking the sleeve up. 

"Don't!" Sherlock snapped, but it was already too late. There were at least three needle marks in Sherlock's arm, and one of them had a bead of blood on it. It was a fresh puncture. 

"Jesus," John whispered, falling back a step and then another step until his back collided with the wall of the hallway. He raised his hands to his mouth for a second, overwhelmed by the sight of the fresh injection mark, and then let them drop at his sides as Sherlock jerked his sleeve back down, covering the track marks. "So... you're using again. You disappeared for two days to shoot up and then you come back and to do it again _in our flat?_ " 

"I won't talk about this," Sherlock said, refusing to meet John's eyes. 

"You bloody well _will_ talk about this, Sherlock. You cannot do this. I realize that a lot of it is my fault, all right? I prescribed you opiates to soothe myself and you started taking them because of me. I understand. But you _cannot_ keep doing this," and John pointed towards Sherlock's arm and the hidden track marks. 

"Or what, John? You'll leave?" 

"No. Stop. This isn't an ultimatum. It's me pointing out the obvious. You're the genius, Sherlock; you know where this is going to take you as much as I do, and I cannot watch it happen. I... God, this is not how I pictured saying this the first time, but... I love you, all right? I love you. And it is absolutely destroying me to see you doing this." 

"I said I won't _talk_ about this," Sherlock said, his voice low and cold as he tried to step past John in the small hallway, but John's arm shot out, blocking him. 

"Sherlock, you can either go to rehab or you can stay here and detox with me watching over you, but you can't go on doing drugs," John said, his voice soft and patient. 

"You left out my third option," Sherlock said, staring coolly down at the arm across his chest, blocking his way. 

"What's what?" John asked. 

"I can leave." 

"I'm not letting you leave," John said, his tone going flat. He pushed off the wall, standing in front of Sherlock and blocking his path up the hall. 

"Yes, you are," Sherlock said, his tone coldly dismissive. John didn't have time to brace for the fist across his face, stumbling into the wall as he raised his hand to press against his aching jaw, taking a second to breathe as both pain and shock pinged through his brain in equal measure. 

He shook his head, pushing off the wall. Sherlock was no longer in the hallway, and John headed towards the sitting room, knowing what he was going to see before he got there: the Belstaff and scarf were gone from the coat rack. Sherlock had left again, and on the floor in front of the open sitting room door was his mobile. 


	12. I Talk to You As If You're Really There // 18th April 2014

Sherlock had been gone for over a month and there were moments when John would tear himself awake in the bed they had once shared, a scream on his lips as he fought his way up from his nightmares.

Sometimes, his dreams were about the war. He would be in battle with the sounds of pain and death all around him. Someone would be shot near him, and when he rushed over with his kit to try and stop the bleeding, it would be Sherlock under his hands. And John would fail to save him, his desperation pouring from him as blood poured and poured from Sherlock. 

Sometimes, his dreams were about chasing Sherlock through the streets of London, watching as Sherlock got further and further away, his body flicking in and out of existence as he ran through the pools of brightness cast by street lights. John would scream for Sherlock to slow down until Sherlock finally disappeared into the blackness of the impossibly dark night, and John would have to face the reality that he was gone. 

In all his dreams, though, no matter what variation they took, Sherlock was in some way leaving him behind and the dreams wounded John on a level beyond physical or emotional. When he woke from his nightmares, though, reality was worse, falling on him heavily and crushing him to the bed as he rolled towards Sherlock's side, pressing his hand against the sheets where Sherlock had not slept. 

He spoke to Mycroft frequently in brief, unsatisfying phone calls. Mycroft was tracking his brother, letting John know when he was able to find signs of Sherlock's passing: a motel room taken in his name for two nights or someone fitting his description seen coming out of a drug den in Peckham the day before. 

John tried calling DI Greg Lestrade after the first week of Sherlock's disappearance and Lestrade promised to let him know if he heard anything from or about Sherlock. After two weeks, John's mobile had rung while he'd been waiting for his takeaway order to arrive and Lestrade had told him that Sherlock had shown up at the Yard the day before and given the DI his new mobile number for possible cases. Lestrade had called him that evening, not expecting him to show up. 

"But he's here, John. If you hurry, you might catch him," Greg had said in a furtive whisper before giving John the address and hanging up. 

John had rushed out without his jacket, not bothering to wait for his takeaway to arrive. He'd taken a cab, tapping his fingers and jittering in the backseat the whole time it was traveling. When he'd seen the flashing lights of the crime scene ahead, he'd thrown the fare at the cab driver and jumped out before the cab had even fully stopped. Lestrade had been waiting for him at the tape barrier around the scene and when John had seen him, he'd known instantly that he was too late. He jogged over anyway, desperate for any new of Sherlock. 

"He left five minutes ago," Lestrade confessed as John jogged to a stop at the crime scene tape. 

"How did he look? Was he well?" John asked, panting. 

"A bit thin and short of sleep, but all right otherwise. You going to tell me what's going on?" Lestrade asked, propping his hands on his hips as he glared at John. 

John sighed, reaching up to rub his fingers over his brow a few times before meeting Lestrade's eyes. "He's on heroin again. He's left 221B and won't speak to me." 

"Shit," Lestrade said, his face falling. "Should I give you his new mobile number?" 

"No, he'd probably just abandon that phone, too, if I tried to contact him. Just... let him help with cases so I know he's still alive, please?" 

Sympathy twisted Lestrade's face and he crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, I will. I'll let you know every time I see him." 

It was a small comfort, but it was better than nothing. John headed back out to a main street to hail another cab, comforting himself with the knowledge that for tonight, at least, Sherlock was still alive. But Lestrade called only once more through the month of March to tell John when Sherlock had shown up at a case, confessing that there were times when Sherlock either didn't answer his mobile or else turned down the case without even hearing about it. John knew that Sherlock almost certainly had to be using heroin regularly, but knowing that he was turning down cases still twisted at something inside John. 

When Mycroft phoned him in mid-April, John excused himself from the patient he had been seeing in the clinic, stepping out into the hallway to take the call. 

"Mycroft. Have you found him?" 

"No... but there's been a change that I feel you should know about," Mycroft said, speaking slowly as if he were choosing each word with care. 

"Oh, God, is he hurt? Where is he? I can leave now and -" 

"No, as far as I know, he is maintaining his habit as well as he ever did. The change is... I've been keeping an eye on his finances. He has been taking money out of his account regularly to pay for motel rooms and to buy food and, of course, his drugs. But today... John, his account is depleted." 

The shock at hearing Mycroft using his first name stunned John enough that the implications of the sentence that followed were almost lost on John. After a second, though, John realized what it meant that Sherlock no longer had money to buy heroin. 

"Oh, Jesus," he whispered, pain doubling him over in the bright, stark white of the clinic hallway. Sherlock would be using his body as payment again, and the idea of Sherlock giving himself to others when he had so many landmines buried within him when it came to sex... what if he panicked in the middle of something and the person he was servicing took it badly? What if they hurt him? What if they killed him? 

"John? Good God, man, are you well?" It was Dr. Wilkins, the clinic director, his round face twisted with worry as he approached John quickly from down the stark hallway. John didn't respond and Dr. Wilkins bent slightly, trying to get a look at John's face. He had a hand on John's shoulder, trying to get him to stand upright, but John wasn't sure yet that he wasn't about to be sick on the floor. He was still clutching his mobile in his hand, but he had no idea if Mycroft was still on the line. He was too focused on the war between the pain doubling him over and the nausea trying to make him lose his lunch all over the shining off-white linoleum of the clinic hallway. 

After a moment, he was able to slowly rise, leaning back against the wall heavily. He was sweating and breathing hard, still fighting against the nausea twisting his gut. His Sherlock was out there somewhere with no money and no way to get money unless he contacted Mycroft or started giving his beautiful body to drug dealers. 

"I just... I need some air," John rasped, waving off Dr. Wilkins' increasingly frantic questions. "There's a patient in Room 2. I can't finish." 

"I'll take over for you. I'll take the rest of your day. Go home, man; you look absolutely dreadful," Dr. Wilkins said. "I mean it. Straight home, Dr. Watson." 

"I will. I am," John said, stumbling away. He was halfway down the hall before he remembered his mobile and he pressed it to his ear, almost hoping Mycroft was no longer on the line. "Mycroft?" 

"I'm so sorry, John," Mycroft said, his voice soft. "I _am_ still trying to find him." 

"Won't he come to you for money? He did last time," John asked, desperation in his voice. 

"I don't think he will, not this time. I spoke to him... _very_ harshly the last time he was sunk into his addiction. I said things... which I very much regretted as soon as they left my mouth, and which I still regret to this day," Mycroft said, and John was surprised to hear a tightness in the other man's voice. Good God, was Mycroft _crying?_ "He has refused help from me in nearly all situations since then; I believe I wounded him deeply with my anger that day, and it is not easy for Sherlock to let go of his negative emotions. For all that he pretends to be in control of himself, he is actually in a constant struggle with what seems to be an overwhelming wellspring of emotion. For Sherlock, it would be better to go straight to selling his body than to approach _me,_ his betrayer, for help again." 

"Jesus," John whispered; that, at least, explained some of Sherlock's animosity towards his older brother. 

"I, of course, put the full blame of that upon myself," Mycroft said, and John heard a soft sniff after the words. Mycroft _was_ crying. John had always thought that Mycroft was a more concentrated version of Sherlock, absolutely all logic and no emotion. Apparently, he had been as mistaken about the elder Holmes brother as he had been about the younger. "There were many ways I could have approached Sherlock when I realized that he was addicted to heroin, and I chose to approach him with anger. No, Dr. Watson... he will not repeat the mistake of coming to me for help." 

"He's been in contact with DI Lestrade of New Scotland Yard. We could have Lestrade hold Sherlock the next time he sees him?" John suggested, grasping at straws now. 

"Would that help him?" Mycroft asked, his tone coaxing. 

After a moment, John bit his lip and sighed. "No," he admitted. 

"Of course, it wouldn't," Mycroft agreed. "He will only be able to be helped when he is ready to be helped. Stay in the flat. Be there if he shows up. That's all you can do, Dr. Watson." And the line clicked off, Mycroft obviously done with their heart-to-heart. 

John hung up, shoving the phone into his pocket as he walked towards the locker room to get rid of his white lab coat. He wanted nothing so much as to be home, to curl in on his pain and try not to picture Sherlock on the street somewhere being used by a nameless, faceless someone. 

The flat was echoing and empty when John stepped into it, the same way it had been since Sherlock had left. He sat down in his armchair heavily, staring across at Sherlock's empty armchair for a long while as he turned his thoughts over and over in his head. 

"I miss you," he told the empty armchair, his voice breaking on the last word. He turned away sharply, pressing his palm against his eyes until the threat of tears abated. He dared not look back at the empty chair again for the moment; it brought back too many of the emotions he had suffered through after he had believed Sherlock dead. And then he was thinking of _that_ particularly awful section of his life again, drowning in it. 

He'd been keeping his head above water the last couple of months, but only barely. After all, when Sherlock had fallen from the roof of St. Bart's Hospital two and a half years before, everything between them had been unspoken. Feelings had not been given voice and no actions had been taken to make them anything more than best friends. Now, though, John had given the whole of himself to Sherlock and liked to believe Sherlock had been doing the same for him. The pain of now merged with the pain of then and John lost the ability to breathe around the ache in his chest for several long seconds, his fingers digging into the arms of his chair as he tried not to be completely overwhelmed. Was it possible to die of emotional pain? Shouldn't a doctor know that? 

When he was finally able to draw a breath, ragged and careful around the aching in his chest, he pressed his hand over his eyes. They were dry, but he felt like he needed to hide from the world for a moment. 

He spoke to the empty room again, his voice choked. "It's like when I thought you were dead, but even worse. I know you _aren't_ dead this time, that you're just choosing to be away from me. And I know it's not a choice that you're making willingly, that it's the drugs that are pushing you to do it. I'm not angry at you. I'm a little angry at myself, but mostly I'm angry at the men who tortured you and left you so broken that you had to escape your entire life by turning to drugs again." 

John paused for a long moment, uncovering his eyes to glance back at the empty armchair before he let his gaze roam around the room, taking in all the bits and pieces of things that Sherlock had collected over the years and with which he'd completely filled the flat. It made John feel as if Sherlock were just in the other room, ready to step out at any moment. 

John pushed himself up from his armchair heavily, turning away from the collected bits of Sherlock's life. Even though it was only late afternoon, he suddenly couldn't stand being awake for that horrible day anymore. He headed through the flat towards the bedroom, crawling into his side of the bed, his hand pressed against the mattress where Sherlock should have been. 


	13. Let Me Do It Right for Once // 19th April 2014

He woke hours later when his mobile rang, the sound discordant and jarring as it jerked him from deep sleep. He had to fumble blindly at the nightstand for a moment before he realized the mobile was still shoved into his trouser pocket. He finally dug it free, noting the time before he answered, surprised that it was just after midnight; he hadn't thought he was that tired.

He cleared his throat before speaking, but his voice was still muzzy. "Hello?" 

"John? It's Greg. He's here." 

John snapped fully awake, slipping his legs out from under the blankets to push his feet into his shoes which he'd left next to the bed before his impromptu nap. "Give me the address. Try to stall him." 

This time, when John threw himself from the cab at the crime scene, Lestrade was _not_ standing at the tape waiting for him. He could see Lestrade, lit up by intermittent flashes from the rotating police lights, standing thirty feet beyond the tape and... Jesus, yes, he was talking to a tall, dark-haired man in a long, dramatic coat. 

John was slipping under the tape before the traffic cop who was meant to be the gatekeeper could say anything, moving quickly past parked police cars, their lights strobing in his eyes with little bursts. Almost as if he could sense John coming, Sherlock's eyes snapped up from Lestrade, focusing on John as the shorter man rapidly closed the distance between them. A quick look of longing swept over Sherlock's face before his usual cool expression descended and he turned away, obviously meaning to leave. John took the last few steps in a run, reaching out to clamp his fingers onto the edge of Sherlock's sleeve. 

"No," John said, his voice harsh. "You aren't running away from me this time, Sherlock." 

"I need to go check on Donovan," Lestrade said, moving quickly away from the two men. He was obviously giving them their space and John mentally thanked him for it. 

Sherlock turned slowly, and John felt a shock run through him; Sherlock had always been thin, but he had obviously not been eating regularly during the last month and a half. His cheekbones were even more pronounced and his eyes looked almost sunken in his face. He was still striking and beautiful, but now he also looked desperate and hollow. His words from the month before came to mind as John stared at him: _"Have you ever been addicted to opiates? Do you know what it feels like when you haven't had a hit in awhile? Everything bleeds to grey and your own mind feels like it's full of emptiness. You're heavy with the pointlessness of everything and every second that you're alive feels like hours of slow torture. And that feeling just goes on and on until your next hit, your next high."_

He looked as if the emptiness had nearly filled him, robbing him of muscle and fat and leaving behind only skin stretched over jutting bone. 

Sherlock's expression was coldly dismissive, not at all what John had grown used to seeing in the last five months. He glanced down at John's hand on his sleeve and then back up to John's face, his pale eyes leeched of color by the dark night, leaving them looking grey and empty as he stared into John's face. "Let go." 

"Not until you've and I have had a proper talk," John said, tightening his fingers even more on the heavy wool of the coat, feeling an ache from his finger joints in response to his grip. "I deserve at least that much from you, don't I?" 

Sherlock hesitated, his eyes searching John's face. He had his seeking expression on his face, the one John recognized from countless cases over the two and a half years he'd been running after his mad genius. It was an expression void of emotion and full of calculation, an expression one would expect on the face of someone examining an interesting mould culture on a slide. Sherlock frequently got that look when examining a murder victim's body or the scene of a crime; it was not an expression John often saw directed at himself. It made John feel small and unimportant, a collection of little facts for Sherlock to sort and put in their appropriate boxes before turning to another, more interesting problem. 

Sherlock opened his mouth to answer John's question, but that blank, probing expression was still on his face as if he were completely disconnected from the moment. John spoke again quickly, trying to weight the odds in his favor. "Just a talk, Sherlock. Can you give me that little, at least?" 

Sherlock's face softened as he stared down at John, his 'consulting detective' mask slipping away by tiny increments until his expression was the one that John frequently thought of as 'my Sherlock.' It was a subtle shift, tightness slipping away from the corners of his eyes and mouth and the muscles of his face relaxing. He finally nodded, shadows shifting over his newer, slimmer face in ways with which John was not familiar. It sent a stab through John's chest; a month and a half away, and Sherlock had lost enough of himself to change the way shadows moved on his skin. 

_'I'll just have to remind him of who he is,'_ John thought, shifting his grip from Sherlock's sleeve and threading his fingers cautiously through Sherlock's, his heart stuttering when Sherlock's hand tightened on his with a kind of frantic desperation. It was a reassurance, the furiousness of the grip of Sherlock's fingers on his, tightening past the point of pain as if John's hand were the only thing keeping him from sinking into a deep and dangerous ocean. Maybe he'd lost muscle but he hadn't lost whatever pulled him to John. 

"I saw a coffee shop up the block when I was coming in. Let's go there." 

"Assuming you aren't going to try to drive your forehead through my nose if I anger you, that would be fine," Sherlock said, his voice a low rumble, and John laughed softly, stroking his thumb over Sherlock's knuckles once. Sherlock did not pull his hand from John's, did not even lessen his bruisingly tight grip, so John continued to stroke the pad of his thumb slowly and soothingly over Sherlock's knuckles as they moved back up the street. 

Seated at one of the small tables with large cups of coffee in front of them, John found he suddenly didn't know what to say. In the bright, false light of the coffee shop, he felt overexposed, a moth pinned to a board and unable to hide. 

Sherlock was watching him without speaking, his pale eyes blue-green in the consistent light of the coffee shop. Those lovely, slightly tilted eyes were ticking from John's eyes to his mouth and back up again, a pattern that repeated at regular intervals as if he were cataloguing the subtle changes to John's face that the month and a half apart had wrought. John knew that none of the changes were good: a tightness around his eyes, a few more wrinkles from frowning, heavier bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. But Sherlock was taking in the changes as if each were fascinating and not displeasing. They were new facets of John to catalogue and cross-reference. There were messages in Sherlock's eyes out of which he would be able to make some sort of sense if only he were a little more clever, John thought. 

John cleared his throat, looking down into the milky depths of his coffee as he tried to find something to say. 

"You're still staying at the flat?" Sherlock asked, his eyes ticking away from John's face to quickly dance across his black jacket and red button-up, down one leg of his trousers and over the shoe not hidden underneath the small table, undoubtedly picking up a hundred tiny clues from not only bits of fluff and dust that had clung to his clothes but also from tiny wrinkles in the fabric and even simply from John's choice in clothes to put on that morning when he'd gotten dressed for a day at the clinic. 

"Yeah, I am. Yeah. Just waiting for my boyfriend to come back home," John said, raising his head to give Sherlock a sad smile. Sherlock's eyebrows lowered, his eyes tightening at the words. "He's been gone for awhile... trying to find himself." 

A humorless smile touched Sherlock's face at that, and he looked away from John to stare across the bright coffee shop at the empty tables and chairs. "It would be more appropriate to say he's trying to _lose_ himself." 

"I don't understand why," John said, sliding his hand across the tabletop to brush his fingertips over Sherlock's, enjoying the brief touch of skin on skin. When Sherlock didn't take his hand back, John kept his own out with just the tips of their fingers touching, the smallest point of contact but so very important to John in that moment. It had been so long since he'd been able to touch Sherlock. "He's amazing. And brilliant... gorgeous... fascinating... brave..." 

"Sounds a little too perfect," Sherlock said, his eyes locked on their fingertips where they touched, the contact as tremblingly faint as a butterfly's. "Perhaps you don't know him as well as you think." 

"I think I actually know him better than he knows himself," John said, sliding his hand on top of Sherlock's slowly, wrapping his fingers around Sherlock's. His throat tightened and he had to push his words past it, making them sound hoarse and painful. "Please, come back with me." 

Sherlock did not pull his hand away, but he did not look up to meet John's eyes and his voice was sad when he spoke. "Oh, John... even if I did come back with you right now, I couldn't be what you want. We'd have a few hours before withdrawal started. You would spend the next week dealing with the very worst of me and you'd probably loathe me before it was over." 

"Fantastic," John said, squeezing Sherlock's hand lightly. "Let's do it." 

He startled a laugh out of Sherlock, the other man's gaze ticking up to John's face for a second as he took in John's expression with little flicks of his eyes. "I tell you that you'd have to suffer through week of tantrums, vomiting and diarrhoea, cold sweats and panic attacks, and you say 'fantastic'?" 

"I love you, you idiot. If you were to come back to the flat with me, I'd know that you loved me, too. I'd know you were choosing to fight for what we have, the life we've built together. Knowing that everything you were going through, you were going through willingly because you valued what we have enough to fight for it? Yeah, I say 'fantastic.'" 

Sherlock's face twisted and he lowered his head quickly, staring down into his untouched coffee and giving John nothing but his tangled curls to look at. "John, I've... done things in the last week that you would have trouble forgiving -" 

"I don't care. You've blown strangers? Fine, I forgive you. You've sold your body for heroin? I forgive you. Damnit, Sherlock, I want you home and healthy more than I want to soothe my injured pride." 

Sherlock kept his head down, by all accounts fascinated with his coffee if how hard he was staring into it was any indication. John could feel the faintest tremble from the hand beneath his own on the tiny table, and he gave it a gentle squeeze. 

"I know you're out of money," John said, his voice hesitant. "Mycroft told me." 

"Mycroft," Sherlock said, giving a derisive snort, the gaze he was directing down at his coffee turning angry and cold. 

"Yeah, Sherlock, your _brother_. He's been trying to find you, same as me. He's been worrying about you, same as me." 

"Judging me," Sherlock muttered, and John sighed. 

"I'm not going to argue with you about Mycroft. That's not why I'm here. You and he can have it out some other day. Right now, I just want you to come home with me. I just need to know that you _want_ to get back to being the brilliant, frustrating mad genius that I fell in love with." 

"What about my hand? Won't you fall apart again the next time it starts hurting?" Sherlock asked, the hand in question clenching as he shoved it further into his lap to hide it from John's gaze. 

"Nope. I'll be completely bloody unfeeling, if that's what you need from me. I'll read the newspaper while you heave. Make eggy bread while you curl up in the foetal position on the sitting room floor and moan." 

Sherlock gave another quick, surprised laugh, raising his head slightly to glance up at John. His beautiful pale eyes caught John's, holding them. 

"Come home," John whispered, studying Sherlock's face as Sherlock studied his. Sherlock had never been the best at reading people's emotions, John knew, but he felt sure in that moment that Sherlock was reading his with startling accuracy. Slowly, John watched Sherlock's face softening. It happened the way the sun rises in the morning: incrementally and so slowly that John couldn't have sworn when it stopped being night and finally became day. 

"Home," Sherlock murmured, staring at John as he turned his hand beneath John's, twining his long fingers through John's tightly. "Somehow, I think I'm already there." 


	14. This is a Story of Loops // 25th April 2014

"Tea?" John asked, peeking his head around the washroom doorway. In response, Sherlock snarled at him from his foetal position on the washroom floor. "Company?"

"Go." 

"I'll be making eggy bread," John said, and he heard a quick laugh cut off by a low groan before Sherlock curled tighter, his long limbs tucked in against his body as he suffered on the floor. But he had responded. It was enough. 

John sat at the kitchen table, drinking the tea he had brewed for himself before he'd gone to check on Sherlock. The last few days had been incredibly hard for both of them. Sherlock wanted to be alone as he worked his way through the heavy grip of withdrawal and John wanted to check in on him, monitor his recovery. They had both had to compromise: John could check on him once an hour and had to leave immediately if Sherlock wanted him gone. If Sherlock seemed to be going into cardiac arrest or seizing, John was allowed to stay; Sherlock had agreed to that one grudgingly and John had been forced to bite down on the insides of his own lips to keep from shouting at how stubborn and ridiculous the other man was being. 

It had been working, though. John kept his distance and Sherlock suffered alone and unobserved. 

The first day, John had phoned everyone he could think of who would have cause to stop by the flat and told them to stay away until he'd phoned back to give the all clear. Of course, once she knew the entire story, Mrs. Hudson had taken to leaving tidbits on the landing outside the sitting room two or three times a day. John would leave one with Sherlock occasionally with varying degrees of success. Occasionally, Sherlock would simply flush whatever baked good John had deposited at the washroom door. Frequently, the pastries would come flying out of the washroom to smash against the hallway wall. Very rarely, Sherlock would eat them. 

The second day, John had caught Sherlock halfway out the sitting room door, shaking and pale with sweat streaming down his face. 

"Giving up?" he asked, and Sherlock froze. He'd hesitated for several long seconds and John could see he was debating just dashing out of the flat. Finally, though, he turned back to look at the shorter man, taking in the lowered eyebrows, the tight jaw, the arms crossed over his chest. 

"This is intolerable," Sherlock said, fidgeting and shifting from foot to foot like a nervous stag staring down a hunter's rifle, unable to hold still and ready to bound away if John made a single false move. His curls had turned into a frizzy fluff after two days of writhing and gripping at them, running his hands through them, and dozing off with his head pillowed on a bathmat. His shirt was misbuttoned and it looked like he'd forgotten to do the zip on his trousers. His stubble stood out starkly against his damp-paper complexion. He was a complete and utter wreck, and John felt awful for him, but now was not the time for sympathy. 

"I'm sure it is. I'm sure it's completely intolerable," John said, keeping his voice low and soft but not bothering to hide the anger in it. "And you will tolerate it because you've made a choice. Unless you want to tell me now that you're making a different choice?" 

Sherlock's red-rimmed eyes shot to John and then away almost immediately; he could not hold the other man's gaze. He fisted his hands at his sides and then shook them loose, shoved them into the pockets of his Belstaff and then pulled them out. He shifted from foot to foot and then took a step back into the flat, moving closer to John and away from the lure of the streets. 

"I'm breaking into pieces," he said, a begging note in his voice as he glanced up at John and then slid his eyes away to stare at the floor, a rug, the sofa, the table, their armchairs. "I feel like I'm going to lose everything of myself if I keep on like this." 

"Sherlock, you lose yourself every time you get high. Right now, you're coming back to yourself. And, yes, it hurts. You're miserable; I understand that. But, it's only for a little while. You said it would take roughly a week to get through the worst symptoms, and you've already made it almost three days." 

Sherlock shifted his weight again, hands reaching towards the lapels of his coat before he let them drop to his sides. He glanced up at John, eyes narrowing as he stared the other man down for a long moment. 

"I'm so amazed by you," John said, uncrossing his arms and holding them wide, an invitation. "What you're going through, what you're choosing to go through... it's amazing." 

Sherlock kicked a foot back, slamming the sitting room door. He tore his Belstaff off and threw it onto the floor of the sitting room before stomping his way over to John and burying his lips and nose in John's hair, arms wrapping painfully tight around John's chest. John nearly tipped over backwards, unprepared for the sudden hugging onslaught, but he managed to catch himself and wrap his own arms around Sherlock, hands stroking soothingly up and down Sherlock's back over the sweat-dampened silk of his black shirt. 

"I hate you right now," Sherlock confessed, his voice muffled against the salt-and-wheat of John's hair. 

"I know you do," John said, trying not to smile. "There are still a few muffins left from Mrs. Hudson's last care package; do you think you might eat another?" 

"Yes, but I'd better eat it in the bathroom; it probably won't stay down long," Sherlock said, and John did not miss the petulant note in his voice. He wisely chose not to respond to it, continuing his soothing stroking of Sherlock's back. 

The third day, John found a package on the landing outside the sitting room along with a plate of Mrs. Hudson's biscuits. The package was from Mycroft, and he took it in to Sherlock who had not bothered to leave the washroom since he'd woken up that morning. 

"Mycroft sent this for you," John said, setting one edge of the large, rectangular box down on the sink to take some of the weight off of himself. 

"You can open it; I'm not interested," Sherlock said, his voice a low groan. It had been a bad day for both vomiting and diarrhoea. John had been sneaking in glasses of water periodically, glad each time he found one emptied. 

"Right," John said. "In here or -" 

"Out." 

"Going," John replied, hefting the package and leaving Sherlock to his misery. 

John nudged Sherlock's laptop and a pile of loose-leaf paper off to one side of the table in the sitting room, opening up a spot for the large cardboard box. He utilized a butter knife retrieved from the kitchen to get the package open, unsurprised that both of the letter openers he kept around the flat had vanished; Sherlock had a bad habit of squirreling them away to use in experiments. 

Inside the cardboard box, beneath an ocean of packing peanuts, John found a violin case, a folded note taped to the outside of it. John left both the case and the note on the sitting room table and cleared away the packing peanuts and the cardboard box. Sherlock would find the violin eventually; taking it to him in the throes of withdrawal would probably only lead to John cleaning up a second smashed violin. 

He understood why Mycroft had sent the replacement: if anyone could learn to play with violin with only one fully functioning hand, it would be Sherlock Holmes. And surely there were courses out there to help amputees play instruments, possibly books or even YouTube videos. John gave the violin case a gentle pat before walking away to put the kettle on; he could check on Sherlock again in 45 minutes and he wanted to pass the time with a large mug of tea and the day's newspaper. 

The fourth day, Sherlock was able to join John in the sitting room. He looked washed out and utterly exhausted, but he wasn't curled next to the toilet, so John took it as a positive step. He noticed the violin case at once and stalked over to it, glaring at it as his mangled hand clenched and unclenched. Finally, he tore the note off and read it before throwing it back onto the sitting room table in a crumpled ball, nearly hitting John in the arm with it where the other man sat at the sitting room table, browsing through a new medical journal. 

Sherlock stalked away from the table and the case, his movements sharp and violent, to throw himself into his black leather armchair, giving it a twist to point it at the flat screen just beyond John's armchair. John hated daytime shows, but at least Sherlock wasn't curled in the bathroom or trying to sneak out the door. 

The fifth day, Sherlock phoned Lestrade to ask for any new cases on which he could help. John followed him out of the flat, his entire body tensed as if he were waiting for Sherlock to make a run for it as soon as they hit the street. But Sherlock stayed near John. He sat with his thighs pressed to John's in the cab, stood next to John as they examined crime scene photos at the Yard, even slowed his pace slightly to allow John to walk directly beside him as they headed out to catch a cab back to their flat, Sherlock having pointed out a few clues in the crime scene photos which were 'obvious and frankly embarrassing to've missed.' 

That evening, John was splayed on the sofa reading when Sherlock stepped over to stand awkwardly just beyond the coffee table, hesitating. He'd been in the kitchen looking over some of his older slides since they'd arrived back at the flat that afternoon, but now he was looking at John with his usual singular focus. 

"Did you need something?" John asked, lowering his book to rest on his chest as he looked up at Sherlock from his comfortable splay on the sofa. 

"I want to join you," Sherlock said, his voice stilted. "I want... to be close to you, touch you." 

John's eyebrows shot up and he fought down the amused smile that tried to stretch over his mouth. He cleared his throat as he closed his book, leaning out to set it on the coffee table. He shifted on the sofa, pressing into the back cushions and making room for Sherlock. 

The taller man joined him, squeezing into the available space and holding himself stiffly until John made a soft, frustrated noise and lifted Sherlock bodily, shifting him so that he lay between John's legs with his upper body on top of John's. 

John settled his hands on Sherlock's upper back, the fingers of one hand playing gently with the curls at the nape of Sherlock's neck until Sherlock finally relaxed, melting against John like a contented cat. The sound of Sherlock's slow, even breathing and the warmth of his body pressing John into the sofa cushions was the most amazing sensation John had felt in months, and he drifted in and out of sleep throughout the night, always waking to find Sherlock still curled on him, drooling a wet patch onto his shirt front. 

The sixth day, John woke to the sound of a violin. It was awkward and there were more bad notes than good, but John kept his eyes shut for long minutes after he'd woken, listening as Sherlock tried to learn a new way of being himself. 

"I know you're awake," Sherlock finally said, but he did not pause his careful, stiff playing. 

"Tea?" John asked, opening his eyes and tipping his head to look across the sitting room at Sherlock. "Some toast?" 

"Tea would be fine," Sherlock said. "Are there any more muffins?" 

"I don't think so," John said, pushing himself up off the sofa and stretching carefully, working the kinks out of his neck and shoulders that sleeping on a sofa always left him. "I can put in a request with Mrs. Hudson, though." 

"Mmm," Sherlock rumbled. "Lestrade texted while you were still sleeping; he has another set of crime scene photos for us to look through today." 

"Right," John said, pushing himself off the sofa with a soft groan; he was definitely getting too old to spend an entire night sleeping on a sofa. 

"I also phoned Dr. Wilkins. I'll be going in to assess my hand for surgery, see if there's anything that can be done to lessen my pain so that it does not interfere with The Work anymore." 

John froze halfway across the sitting room, heart suddenly in his throat. _Sherlock_ had phoned Dr. Wilkins about his hand? 

Sherlock noticed John's stillness and the sound of the violin stopped. John heard soft footsteps behind him and turned to look up at Sherlock, throat working as he swallowed. 

"You phoned Dr. Wilkins?" John whispered, still unable to believe it. Sherlock had fought against John's advice for his damaged hand since the first day; surely John had misheard him.

"I decided that letting another man come at my destroyed hand with a sharp instrument had to be better than either trying to push through the pain or drug it away." There was a twist of humor to the words, but John could see the pain on Sherlock's face. He reached out slowly, taking Sherlock's damaged hand into his as gently as he could, lifting it to press a soft kiss next to the twisting line of scar tissue. 

"If the surgeon can free the entrapped nerves, this shouldn't hurt as bad or as often," he said, his eyes on Sherlock's face, watching as the pain in his expression slid away to be replaced by a look of fondness. "And even if he can't, it won't change how I feel about you. You have always been the best and wisest and bravest man that I have ever known. Missing a few fingers doesn't change that. Your hand isn't destroyed." 

"I have also looked into the possibilities of a prosthesis. It might improve my playing," Sherlock said wryly, glancing over at the violin where it lay on the sitting room table across the room. 

"Even without a prosthesis, I have every confidence that you'll be playing as well as ever soon. I've never met anyone as stubborn and bull-headed as you," John said, stroking the back of Sherlock's hand gently, surprised that the other man hadn't taken it back from him yet; Sherlock had been prickly about John touching or looking at it ever since he'd returned. 

"My bull-headedness as served me well this week," Sherlock pointed out, raising a single eyebrow as he looked down at John. 

"Thank God for it, too," John said. "Having experienced life without you for two years, I can safely say I never want to repeat that. It's too hard being without you. I don't know how you managed it, but my emotional well-being seems dependent on you being here with me." 

"My John," Sherlock said, stepping close to press his lips fleetingly to John's forehead, his good hand catching hold of John's hand just as the thumb and remaining fingers of his damaged hand closed tightly on John's other hand. For the first time, he held both of John's hands, hiding nothing. 

"Always, Sherlock," John murmured, tipping his head up to capture Sherlock's lips with his own. "Always." 

**\- end -**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All chapter titles come from two of Richard Siken's poems: "The Stag and the Quiver" and "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out."
> 
> Thank you so very much for reading this fic. If you haven't yet, please take a moment to leave Kudos (and, if you are reading this Note at the very end, I assume you enjoyed it enough to WANT to leave Kudos). Comments are my addiction; I love to chat. Don't hesitate to ask questions or just say how much you enjoyed reading.
> 
> You can follow my Tumblr for updates and random writerly musings plus reblogs of Johnlock theories and metas that catch my attention: pixchuu221b.tumblr.com
> 
> See you in the next fanfic.


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